A memorable day at the lake
by Edge408
Summary: When Joe learns from his best friend, Gio, that his older sister plans to spend the night at the Tree with her high school posse, he becomes consumed with the need to go investigate. So, he persuades his friends to undertake a wild expedition to the lone Tree standing at the edge of the lake, which is only reachable by trespassing on the property of the town's old scary recluse.


A MEMORABLE DAY AT THE LAKE

BY

EDWIGE DEWAEL

Chapter One

At 9:00 AM, Joe was startled awake by a loud sharp noise. He sat up in his bed staring blankly across the room, confused and disoriented. As Joe wiped the sweat from his face he realized his heart was pounding heavy on his chest. Slowly familiar objects came into focus and he realized that he was in his own bedroom. "What was that?". The house was silent except for the sound of distant sirens coming from his open window.

He jumped out of bed and quickly threw on some shorts and a T-shirt and rushed downstairs. When he stormed into the kitchen, Matt was already sitting at the counter eating a bowl of cereal with great delight. As usual, he had made a mess around the bowl - for some reason he never used a spoon to eat his cereal - but he didn't seem to mind that the milk was slowly soaking his magazine.

"Hey, did you hear something a minute ago?" he asked his brother, grabbing some paper towels to clean up the mess.

"Mm-hmm." Matt said without looking up from his magazine, "Sounded like a gunshot to me."

"What? ...Yeah, right! When was last time a gunshot rang out in this neighborhood? Never!" Joe shook his head dismissively and trashed the soiled paper towel. He just couldn't believe what a freak his brother was.

Two weeks had passed since school had let out for the summer and the season's activities were in full swing in the little town of Birchwood. Nestled in a thick wooded area and sprawled around a big lake with plenty of activities revolving around water, Birchwood was for most people the ideal place to enjoy the summer. However, not everyone living there saw it that way; especially not Joe. He had been swimming at every swim meet since he was old enough to walk, and had worked the concession stand at the main beach for years. Now he was facing the risk of having to spend countless hours sitting in a lifeguard chair. "Not this summer", Joe Maloney kept telling himself. There was no way he would go through another mind-numbing summer of lifeguard duty. His decision had led to a long and difficult negotiation with his mother, for she worried about her boys and always made sure they would have something planned each day to keep them occupied and out of trouble. In the end, they had reached a compromise and had agreed that Joe would take care of his brother for the summer.

Now, looking at the dark haired boy who was sitting on a stool shoveling milk-soaked cereal into his mouth with one hand and playing with the corner of his magazine with the other, Joe wasn't sure that he had made the best choice.

Matt was still reading his magazine when the police cars raced by their house with lights flashing and sirens blaring before pulling up in front of the house two doors down.

The two boys rushed to the front steps just in time to see the ambulance fly around the corner and race down the street. The backdoors burst open when the ambulance screeched to a stop behind the police cars, and three paramedics jumped out and rushed inside the house.

The house in question belonged to the Jones family. It was a small ranch style house easily recognizable by the long covered porch in front and a very large deck flanked by a screened-in gazebo out back.

After a few minutes, one paramedic came out and gestured for another to bring the gurney inside.

Joe was about to walk down the street to check things out when he saw Gio running toward him. He was flailing his arm above his head to get his attention, and yelling at the top of his lungs, "Joe! Wait up!"

Joe waited for his friend to catch up with him. Matt lost interest and went back inside to finish his bowl of Fruit Loops.

"Dude, what's going on?" Gio asked out of breath. He had sweat running down his red face. "I heard the commotion from across the lake and came as fast as I could. Looks like something is going down at the Jones. What is it this time?"

"Don't know, man. I was just about to go find out!"

Joe started to head down the street towards the Jones. The O's, as the other kids called them for their names both ended with 'O', walked down the street side by side, one five inches shorter than the other, without talking to each other and just focusing on the commotion up ahead.

Although Mr. and Mrs. Jones were both always friendly and amiable, they were outcasts in the community. The fact that he played up his Jesus-like figure by keeping his hair long and sleekly combed back with gel might have contributed to their social awkwardness. Or was it their inexplicable desire to keep on having babies every other year? Already a family of 7 children with 3 girls and 4 boys, they were expecting one new member any day now. It had been months since Mrs. Jones had been seen jogging around the lake 3 or 4 times a week, which was her routine when she was in between pregnancies. Besides the fact that their kids were all skinny and wearing out-of-fashion, ill-fitting clothes, they all had long stringy hair varying only in the different shades of brown.

As the O's got close, they were stopped by a police officer who was telling the onlookers that had gathered around to go back home.

At that precise moment, the paramedics came out wheeling the gurney carrying the small frame of a child who seemed to be unconscious.

Joe turning to his friend, "Must be one of the boys, look at the hair hanging to the side. Too dark to be one of the girls!"

"And too small to be Tic-Tac-Toe Bob, cause that freak is way bigger than the twins! That's for sure." Gio said.

"C'mon, guys. Move along. Move along!" the police officer admonished the two boys; he was walking towards them with an intimidating air about him.

Without protest, the boys turned around and walked rather briskly back to Joe's house only to find the front door shut and locked. Ringing the doorbell insistently, they waited for Matt to open the door to let them in. Joe thought that the lifeguard duties might have been a much better option this summer, after all.

"All right, Matt!" Joe said in a controlled voice when Matt finally opened the front door, "Why did you lock the door?" Yet, unable to contain his anger any longer, he added sarcastically, "Did you really think that someone was going to snatch you out of this house with all the cops down the street?"

"You never know." Matt said matter-of-fact, then turned around and walked back to the family room. He was still holding the remote control for the TV, "Better safe than sorry."

"I'll show you sorry, YOU LOSER!" Joe barked at his brother, lunging forward to grab his arm. Unfazed by his older brother's threats, Matt flung his arm out of Joe's reach, and looking over his shoulder said with a triumphant grin, "Missed!"

"Whoa. Chill out!" Gio said, quickly jumping in front of his irritated friend to hold him back. He was used to seeing these two bickering with each other and knew it could quickly escalate to a full-blown fight. To defuse the situation, he steered his friend in a different direction, and quickly added, "I overheard Maria talking on her cell phone this morning, and it sounded like something is going on at the Tree..."

Giovani Cappi had been Joe's best friend ever since their mothers had met at a Mom's Club when they were both toddlers. Gio and his older sister, Maria, lived with their parents in a huge house overlooking the water on the north shore of the lake. Gio's bedroom was so big that the whole downstairs of Joe's house could have fit in it. No one was really sure how the Cappis had made their fortune, but the rumor had it that Mr. Cappi might have "been connected" back in Italy, which might have contributed to his wealth. Maria, a high school sophomore, was a true Italian beauty. Her luminous brown eyes that always seemed to smile softened her square-shaped face, but her most beautiful asset was her wavy brown hair cascading down to her waist. Every boy in town was secretly in love with her, and Joe was no different.

Walking upstairs to his bedroom, Joe's interest was piqued at the mention of Maria. "Oh? Like what?" he asked his friend, trying to sound casual.

"Dunno, but we should go check it out. How else are we going to find out?" Gio said, holding the bedroom door open for his friend.

Chapter Two

'The Tree' was in an area thick with undergrowth and magnificent moss covered trees at the end of the lake. On a sunny day, the rays of the sun would shine through at different angles as if spears had pierced holes in the forest. Among the diverse varieties of trees, there was one that really stood out. It was a 200 feet tall Douglas-fir tree that was covered from roots to top with moss and lichen. The bare branches shot straight out perpendicularly to the trunk and bent upward at a third of their length. The tree looked like a giant scarecrow at the end of the lake.

The so called 'Tree' was a common point of interest among the kids of Birchwood. Its perfect location at the end of the lake provided the ideal setup for a rope swing as well as privacy. Even though there weren't any trails that led there, and the only way to get to it was by trespassing on Mr. Greenpound's property, kids always managed to reach it.

"Why would your sister and her friends want to hang there for? I seriously doubt that they'll want to swing off the tree and into the lake for a swim." Joe said, considering what his friend had just said, "I can't really picture her doing that. Though, it'd be quite a sight, wouldn't you say?"

"Yeah, right! That'll be the day! Maria getting her precious hair wet! Uh huh." Gio replied, rolling his eyes.

Joe was relishing the mental picture of Maria diving graciously in the lake when he saw Matt standing in the doorway holding the phone.

"What do you want, now?" Joe asked him, still irritated about being locked out earlier. He hadn't heard him come upstairs.

"Mom wants to talk to you..." he said handing the phone to his brother while leaning against the doorframe.

"Get lost!" he told Matt dismissively, covering the phone with his hand. Then, raising the phone to his ear, he asked in a much softer tone, "Hey, Mom. What's up?"

"...Joe, honey. Are you okay?" she asked worried, and without letting her son answer, she added, "I heard over my radio that gun shots were fired at the Jones...Is everyone okay there? Do you know? I think..."

"MOM!" Joe cut in, shouting in the receiver to stop his mother's rapid jabber, "Hold on, now. What are you talking about?"

"...Well, I heard the message on my cruiser radio. Some gun shots were fired at 56 Yavapai Lane which is the Jones' address. So I got worried."

"Oh..." Joe managed to say before she interrupted him, "I didn't know they owned a gun, did you?"

Joe noticed the change in his mother's elocution, she had now switched to her police officer manner.

"No, I didn't know that, either." he said, without being all that surprised as anything seemed possible with the Jones. Covering the phone again, he mouthed to Gio, "Gun shots at the Jones!"

"...so everything is fine, then?" she went on, relieved that both her sons were home and safe, "I'll call you before I come up to the lake later, okay? Please be safe. Love ya..."

"Yeah, sounds good. Love you too." he retorted before hanging up.

"Why are you so mean to your brother?" Gio asked his friend, "Can't you just leave him alone? I mean, really." It was the only subject of argument between the two friends.

"He just gets on my nerves. His head is always up in the clouds. It really gets old and annoying after a while." Joe explained.

"Try having an older sister and then you'll know what annoying means! But, yeah, you're right, Matt seems to zone out sometimes... Still, you shouldn't be so nasty to him." Gio told his friend. After Joe had closed his bedroom door and had sat down again, Gio asked him, "What did you say? Someone shot a gun at the Jones? I didn't know they had a gun!"

"Me neither..."

"Hey, didn't you tell me the other day that some relative of theirs was visiting?" Gio asked still processing the news and trying to come up with an explanation.

"Yeah, some uncle or cousin who's a Federal Air Marshal, I think." Joe said absentmindedly, reaching for his cell phone on the desk to check if it was turned on. "Oh my god!" he suddenly exclaimed, as if a light bulb had been turned on in his head, "I bet the cousin, or whoever he is, carries a gun for his job and maybe the kids found it."

"Whoa. You think so?" Gio asked in his usual way, "But yeah, that would make sense! Damn!"

They sat in silence for a while without feeling awkward like longtime friends do.

"So, hmm, what about the tree?" Joe asked casually, he thought, wanting to hear more about Maria and her friends' plan.

"Oh, right... The Tree... I almost forgot all about it." Gio said, snapping out of his thoughts, "I couldn't hear the whole conversation, but it sounded like something is going down there tonight..."

"Oh, yeah? Like what?"

"Dunno. She said something about bringing torches and blankets..." Gio recalled, raising his eyebrows and shrugging his shoulders, "Beats me!"

"How are they gonna go there and bring all that stuff with them?" Joe asked, perplexed, "Well, I hope at least they're not planning to cut through Greenpound's property!"

Mr. Greenpound was an old and gruff widower who was well known for his lack of patience and moderation. For years, kids of all ages had attempted to cut through his property by using all kinds of subterfuges, but every time someone would step even one foot over his property line he would appear out of nowhere holding a stick in his hand. He'd then start running toward the intruder swinging the stick like a machete cutting through a thick jungle with a mad man look on his face which he accentuated by opening his eyes wide and making growling-like sounds with his twisted mouth. Mr. Greenpound had been successfully terrifying boys and girls of all ages for years.

"Let's go see what's happening at the lake." Gio said, "Maybe someone there will know more about tonight."

"Sounds good. I bet Alan is already there and he will know more since his brother hangs out with Maria and her posse." Joe said, checking the time on his cell phone, " Gotta take Matt to his swimming lessons first, though." Joe got up to go tell his brother to get ready, "I'll meet you there afterward."

Joe took Matt to the swim shack. It was a single-wide trailer filled with team swimsuits and swimming accessories of all sorts for sale. The shack was also the meeting place for swimmers before practice.

"Hi, guys." Coach Al greeted them with his usual wide smile. He showed Matt to a big pile of flippers, "Matt, grab a pair of fins before you go out, okay?" then turned to Joe and asked him good-humoredly, winking his eye, "How's your girlfriend?"

"Just fine, Coach Al." Joe said with a strained smile, holding his thumb up. He quickly left the building as he knew he was starting to turn bright red. He spotted Matt a few yards away walking to the swimming lanes and called out to him that he'd be back to get him in a couple of hours. Matt just kept walking, holding the fins under one arm and waving goodbye with the other without bothering to look over his shoulder.

Joe hurriedly set off for the other side of the lake where there was another small beach area with a roped-off swimming section next to a small dock. It was also the area where Joe and his friends would hang out.

Coming around the bend in the road, Joe could tell that something was going on. There was an unusual big gathering of kids by the dock. He started to walk faster and got to the small crowd just as Alan was saying, "...and he shot him!"

"Who shot who?" Joe asked, jumping into the conversation. All eyes turned to him, which made him blush heavily, "Sorry, I missed the beginning of what you were saying, Alan."

"Hey, Joe. What's up?" Alan said, undeterred by his interruption, "I was telling these guys about the gun shot at the Jones this morning. Apparently, one of twins got shot by his brother."

"Which brother?" Joe asked, "Tic-Tac-Toe Bob?"

"Yep!" Alan said, nodding his head.

Robert Jones was the family's oldest child and by far the weirdest of them all. He had been nicknamed Tic-Tac-Toe Bob by his classmates in Sixth Grade after an infamous PE class. That day after they'd changed into their gym clothes, the teacher had asked his students to sit down on the bleachers to fill out some paperwork. Everyone was diligently doing their part save for Bob who was waving his leg around asking everyone sitting nearby if they'd be interested in a game of Tic Tac Toe. He had drawn the squares on his leg, and after realizing that no one wanted to play, had started to place crosses and circles on the grid.

"Alan, tell Joe how it happened." Gio said, and looking at Joe, he added, "It's classic, man!"

Alan who loved to be the center of attention and never missed an opportunity to monopolize the conversation said, "Mr. Jones' brother who is an Air Marshall decided to stay at his brother's house during his layover instead of going to a hotel by the airport. Over dinner one night, he tells them that he carries his gun in a locked briefcase and keeps the key around his neck."

"And...?" Joe urged, wanting to know more details.

After taking a big breath, Alan continued, "This morning the brother went for a jog around the lake and forgot to hide the briefcase key. So, Tic-Tac Toe Bob, who had just gotten up and was walking by the bedroom the uncle had slept in, noticed the key laying on the nightstand. He quickly snagged it and went downstairs for breakfast. He waited until his mother had left the kitchen to tell the twins that he had the key that would open the briefcase. The three of them went quietly upstairs to look for the briefcase."

Here Alan paused for effect, looking around to check who was listening. Reassured that he still had a captive audience, he carried on, "As luck would have it, the briefcase was under the bed. How clever! I tell ya... Anyway, Tick-Tack Toe Bob took out the gun and after inspecting it, passed it to his brothers for them to get a turn to hold it. When he got the gun back from his brothers, he decided to show the twins how cowboys use to draw their guns back in the days. So, holding the gun against his leg, he quickly draws it and...BANG, that's when it goes off!"

"Whoa, Whoa, Whoaww!" said Gio, still completely bewildered, even though he had already heard that part of the story, "And he shot his brother!"

"How dumb!" Joe said, "But how do you know all that?"

Sensing that he was about to loose credibility, Alan decided to admit that he might have embellished some of the details of the story, "But the part about shooting his brother with his uncle's gun is really what happened" he said, "and I know that because Mrs. Jones asked my Mom if she could take care of the kids and told her about what happened before leaving for the hospital."

"So, you're telling us that Mrs. Jones took the time to walk over to your house, explain to your mother what happened, and only then leave for the hospital?" Joe asked Alan, skeptical, "It just doesn't make any sense, even for the Jones'."

"Come to think of it, Alan, Joe is right." Gio said, shaking his head in disbelief, "There's no way my Mom would have decided to stay at home instead of riding in the ambulance if any of us would have been shot!"

"Mrs. Jones didn't ride in the ambulance with Albert because Robert didn't shoot Albert or his twin brother, Wilbert. The bullet only ended up breaking the window." Rachel explained in her usual quiet voice, "Mrs. Jones called 9-1-1 when she found Al laying unconscious on the floor after the gunshot."

Everyone there was now staring at the tall skinny girl they all knew with great interest and amazement. Unperturbed, she concluded, "By the time the paramedics got there, Al had regained consciousness. They still decided to take him to the hospital to have him checked out."

"Boy, I wouldn't wanna be Tick-Tack Toe Bob right now!" Alan said a little too loud, and using one of Robert's favorite expression, added, "Who's the epic failure NOW?!"

"Shut up, Alan!" Joe snapped, "I kinda of feel bad for the kid, you know. He is weird, all right, but I don't think he meant to fire the gun and scare the life out of his brother."

The crowd fell silent and soon started to disperse around the beach into small groups. Samantha, who was approaching the beach with long strides, easily spotted her friends standing by the dock.

"Hey, Sam. What's up?" Joe said when she reached them.

"What's going on? Why are all these freaks crowding the beach today?"

"It's because of the gunshot at the Jones' this morning. They all came here to found out what happened." Gio said, glancing at all the kids spread out on the beach.

"Hmm. Why the Jones would have a gun in that small house with that many kids around is beyond me!" Sam said after Gio had given her a recap of the story.

"Right? I know!" Joe said, "Are you on duty today?"

Samantha was short with broad shoulders. She always wore oversized tops, skinny jeans, even in the summer, and high top Converse. Her hair was short except for a long sidebang that covered the left side of her face. Even on days she was working as a lifeguard, she would show up at the beach in her usual attire. On those days, the only giveaway was a bag she carried over her shoulder that contained her one piece swimsuit and a towel.

"Yeah, from 11:30 to 1:30." She said, dropping her bag next to her. "What are you guys up to today?"

"Don't know, yet." Alan said, while shaking his head and looking at his friends for suggestions.

"Looks like something is going on over there." Rachel said softly, pointing her chin towards a group of teenagers on the beach.

They all turned to look at a group of boys and girls laughing and gesturing a great deal.

"Isn't that your sister holding Tristan's hand, over there?" Sam asked Gio, casually.

"I didn't know Maria was going out with your brother, Alan." Joe said surprised.

"How could you not! They spend all their time either texting each other or hanging all over each other; I swear, it's obnoxious and pathetic!" Alan said, completely disgusted.

"Huh. Who would have thought..." Joe muttered, turning around to hide his displeased expression, then added, "Hey, Alan, do you know what's up with them, tonight?"

"Who? Tristan and Maria?"

"NO. Who cares about that." Joe said, pretending to sound dismissive, "I mean with the whole group. Gio said he heard Maria make plans to meet them at the Tree tonight and bring stuff along."

"Oh, that!" Alan said, "I think the plan is to spend the night there tonight."

"Who would want to do that?" Sam said, picking up her bag, "Pfffft...that's so stupid!"

"I think it's kinda cool, actually." Joe said, imagining himself sitting next to Maria under the tree.

"Yeah, whatever... Gotta go. Later." Sam said. She turned around and headed for the restroom to go change into her bathing suit.

"See ya, Sam." Gio called after her, "Call us when you're done if you want to hang later!", then facing his friends, he asked them, "So, what do you guys want to do?"

Maria and her friends were starting to leave, giving each other high fives and weird hand signals. Those working as swim coaches or lifeguards were heading toward the main beach, while others went different ways.

It was almost lunchtime, and with no definite plans, Joe and his friends decided to go as usual to Gio's for lunch. The Cappis had the best stocked kitchen in town. The different sorts of cold cuts like pancetta, prosciutto, and Mortadella paired with condiments from around the world, along with the huge assortment of breads enabled the creation of all kinds of sandwiches. In the summer, Mrs. Cappi, who was renowned in Birchwood for her pizza, would bake one every day. She would start by having the dough rise early in the morning. Once it would have doubled in volume, she would press the dough down flat with the tips of her fingers. Then she'd slather a small amount of homemade tomato sauce on it, add the toppings, cover them with a generous amount of Mozzarella cheese, and then bake it just in time for lunch.

They could smell the baking pizza before they could even see Gio's house. Instinctively, they all walked faster, already salivating at the thought of the delicious pie awaiting them.

Gio led them in the house through the huge foyer flanked on each side by arching staircases, and past the dinning room. A massive wood door opened into the kitchen, which was very large much like the rest of the house. Opposite from the 6 burner stove, there was a wood-fired fireplace that took a big part of the wall. Besides being the focal point of the room, Mrs. Cappi used it as a pizza oven. Using a long wooden peel, she would place the pizza in the oven to bake, and set the peel next to the fireplace to have it handy to take the pizza out once the top would be bubbling and the crust crisp.

After greeting Gio's mother, they all sat down at the long table covered with a red and white checkered tablecloth that stood in the middle of the room. The smell coming from the fireplace made their stomach growl and their mouth water, but the most excruciating part about it was to wait for the pizza to be done.

Finally, Mrs. Cappi took the pizza out of the oven with the peel, slid it on a big plate in the center of the table and cut the pie in 8 slices. They all grabbed a piece, folded it in half and devoured it despite burning their tongues.

"Era buona la pizza?" Mrs. Cappi asked in Italian, wiping her floured hands on her apron and smiling broadly.

"Yes, Mrs. Cappi." Rachel said while licking some tomato sauce off her finger. "You make the best pizza not only in Birchwood, but in the world!"

"Thank you, Rachel" she said with a thick accent, and addressing her son, she added again in Italian, "E brava questa ragazza!"

"What did she say?" Rachel whispered, leaning toward Gio.

"That you are nice."

"Oh!" Rachel mumbled, blushing. She straightened herself and made a point to keep her eyes riveted to her napkin.

"We should go to the Tree and see what they've brought there so far." Joe said, after Mrs. Cappi had gone back to her stove, "This whole plan for tonight is intriguing, don't you think?"

"I guess..." Alan said. He didn't like to venture off paved roads and into the woods. It just made him feel claustrophobic to be surrounded by thick and obstructive foliage. "Well...why not, since we don't have anything else to do today." he added cheerfully, thinking that it might not be too bad as long as they stayed on the path and he kept up with his friends the whole time.

"Fine with me." Gio said, "But we need to be careful not to get caught by good old Greenpound or the watchers! The place is guarded 24/7, you know."

"Indeed!" Rachel said, now fully recovered from her embarrassment.

"Ragazzi, wait!" Mrs. Cappi said. She rushed out of the kitchen to go to the butler's pantry, and returned with a handful of small ziplock bags filled with cookies, "I made some biscotti, take some with you, okay?"

They all thanked her, and quickly cleared the lunch table before leaving Gio's house.

They were on their way to the lake when Rachel's phone went off; Sam had finished her shift and was wondering what they were up to. Rachel told her about their plans and it was decided that Sam would meet them at the beach.

Chapter Three

The town of Birchwood sat at one end of an oval shaped lake. The town consisted of one grocery store, one small gas station and a restaurant/deli, not very good judging by the lack of attendance. The Elementary and Middle schools were in another neighboring town, just a bus ride from Birchwood.

Besides a few tall houses converted into apartments in the town itself, most of the inhabitants lived either on the north or south sides of the lake. The north side hosted the most affluent people in town, and was easily recognizable by the mansion-like houses standing at the top of long and well kept lawns sloping down to the lake.

At the opposite end of the lake, across from the town, the paved road dead-ended into a small parking lot next to a dense wooded area. A small marked trail started from the lot and snaked around the lake to the other side where it would meet a wider paved road. A few areas had been cleared and appointed with benches where the trail came near the shore for hikers to rest and enjoy the view.

The Tree stood in an alcove, away from the trail, and hidden from the water by a small island 50 yards from shore. Until recently, the area had also been reachable by boats, but was now strictly off-limits to anyone, including hikers. The town association had unanimously voted to close it last summer after a handful of kids had vandalized the area. The incident had happened one evening the previous summer when 3 boys had decided to go there to hangout. One of them had brought a cardboard box full of fluorescent tubes that he'd stolen from someone's garage. Reenacting famous Star Wars scenes, they'd each gotten a tube out of the box, and holding it as if it were a lightsaber, had started to slash at each other in various directions. It hadn't taken long before the tubes had broken into many small pieces. One of the boys, who'd been struck by a tube, ended up with many little shards of glass lodged in his forearm and had started to bleed. Realizing that they could get into some serious trouble, they'd hurriedly jumped on their boat and gone back to town, leaving the broken glass as well as the cardboard behind. It had taken days to cleanup the mess they'd left, and the site had been closed off ever since. The association had even voted to assign people to watch the area for anyone who would trespass.

Following the road, Joe, Gio, Alan, and Rachel walked back to the south side beach to go meet Sam.

"Jeezo, don't hurry up or anything; I've only been waiting here for EVER!" Sam said sarcastic to her friends when she finally saw them.

"Whoa, chill out, Sam!" Gio said holding his hand up in front of his face, and then lowering it to his stomach, he added, "We came as fast as we could on a full stomach, you know."

"Oh, you buttheads! You had Mrs. Cappi's pizza for lunch and didn't save me any?"

"Here, Sam." Rachel said calmly, handing Sam a slice of pizza she had wrapped especially for her in a paper napkin before leaving Gio's house.

"You're the best, Rachel!" Sam exclaimed, swiftly grabbing the piece of pizza. "So, which way are we going?" she asked, looking up and down the road while chewing on a big piece of pizza.

"Do any of you know if the Watchers are there now?" Joe asked his friends.

"Nope. But we should probably go that way." Alan said, pointing toward Greenpound's private road.

"He's right." Sam said, tossing the last piece of pizza into her mouth, "We don't want to get caught snooping around by the Watchers, you know."

"Okay. Let's go!" Joe said, already walking away.

Mr. Greenpound was the only property owner to live on that part of the lake. A private road that branched off the main road on the south side of the lake was the only access to his house .There was a big "NO TRESPASSING" sign next to an old cannon that pointed toward the main road on purpose to deter people from going any further.

The property shaped like an upside down trapeze with its small side backing to the tree area had provided kids the best concealed access to the tree. Mr. Greenpound, who had reached a new height of rage since the beginning of the summer due to all the trespassers and vandalism upon his property, had become more frightening than ever.

"Alright. ...But... What do we do if Greenpound spots us?" Rachel asked in her usual calm way.

"Run for your life!" Gio said, dramatic, "And don't look back, just keep going until you're safe. The old fart IS crazy, man!"

They all stared at Gio, who was still rotating his index finger around his ear, and bursted out laughing as they headed toward the private road.

It was a gravel road crowded on each side by overgrown bushes, and covered with numerous potholes. The green arch-like structure made of trees leaning over the road and the moss dropping down from low overhanging branches created an eery and uneasy sensation of being engulfed in a green hole.

They nervously walked past the cannon, keeping their conversation to a strict minimum and only whispering to each other at times. As they were going down the road briskly, they constantly checked the side bushes and kept looking back over their shoulders expecting Mr. Greenpound to appear at any time.

"Gotta take a leak." Alan whispered.

"So? I'm sure you can easily find a tree to water round here!" Sam said in a low voice.

Alan hesitated and after checking the road behind him one more time, and squinting hard into the thick bushes, he decided to pee right there on the spot.

"Ee-yew!" Sam said in total disgust, turning her head away, "Really? Like you couldn't have walked 10 feet off the path to piss in private!" She kept walking on.

"WAAAAAIT!" Alan whispered loudly. Franticly turning his head around with his eyes wide open, he started to breath faster and harder while desperately trying to stop peeing. By the time he had finished his business and zipped up his shorts, his friends had vanished into the green gulf.

He rushed down the road after them, but he couldn't see or hear any of them. Beads of sweat started to peek out on his forehead as he was gasping for a breath of air, hearing his heart pumping in his ears, and no longer feeling his legs. He fell to his knees, breathing hard with his mouth wide open like a carp, and tears running down his cheeks. "This is the end!" Alan thought.

"Alan, what the hell are you doing?" asked Joe, who'd come back to check on his friend only to find him kneeling down on the road.

Alan was still struggling to catch his breath when he looked up at Joe as if he were his savior.

"Dude, are you okay?" Joe said, concerned, bending down to touch Alan's shoulder.

Still unable to talk, Alan nodded his head affirmatively and discreetly wiped the tears off his face, hoping his friend hadn't noticed them.

"What happened? Was it another panic attack?"

"No..." Alan said in a breath, standing up with the help of Joe's pulling hand.

"All ready then...Let's go!"

Alan had managed to slow down his breathing to a normal pattern and was following Joe on shaky legs. He was trying hard to pull it together because he would be mortified if the others suspected he'd almost lost it just going to the bathroom.

When they reached the rest of the group, Sam said, "Damn, I didn't know it took you so long to pee!" She was rolling her eyes while shaking her head at the same time which made her bangs move like windshield wipers across her face.

"Shhhhhhh!" whispered Gio, placing his finger vertically in front of his mouth.

They all fell silent and listened attentively. They heard a faint snapping noise coming from the bushes. They all froze, darting glances at each other and holding their breath.

Hearing nothing more, Joe nodded them toward the road to keep going. About two hundred yards up the road, they found a small footpath that cut through the wood toward the direction of the lake. The pathway was narrow and obstructed by thorny vines, wet fern leaves, and an occasional low tree branch.

"Let's go this way. This path will hopefully take us near the Tree." Joe said in a low voice.

"Whose brilliant idea was this, again?" Sam asked after a few steps down the path as she angrily brushed aside a tree branch in front of her.

"Oh My God, Sam!" said Rachel in a very unusual commanding voice, "Could you just SHUT UP, ALREADY!"

Unused to such outbursts from Rachel, they all stopped talking at once and kept walking one behind the other, quietly.

At first, they only perceived a faint noise of footsteps and heavy breathing somewhere behind them. By the time they heard the tramping footsteps, they instinctively reached for each other's forearms and dashed for the lake, screaming for their lives.

Gio, who was bringing up the tail, turned around and was horrified to see Mr. Greenpound chasing after them, brandishing a stick in front of his face distorted with rage.

"AGHHHHHHHHHH! RUN FASTER" they all chanted in unison.

Chapter Four

Rachel found herself at the head of their small group running as fast as she could. Joe and Sam followed her closely, but Alan had fallen to the back of the line and was struggling to keep up with them. Gio had encouraged Alan to run faster at first, but every time he'd turned around to cheer him up, he'd see Mr. Greenpound's scary distorted face. Unable to take control of his fear, he just sprinted up ahead to catch up with the leading pack and left Alan lagging behind.

"Gio...wait...please..." Alan pleaded out of breath. He had trouble breathing as he was wheezing constantly, and his legs felt like they had cinderblocks tied to them. He desperately wanted to stop this madness and just sit there on the ground to take a rest. As he was checking over his shoulder to see if Greenpound was still chasing after them, a branch smacked him in the chest. Startled, he lost his balance, tripped and fell landing face first on a bed of ferns. "Oh my god! No, not again!" he thought, closing his eyes as he was fighting for breath which made him feel lightheaded and dizzy. At that point, he just gave in to the rising tide of panic that was swelling inside his chest.

Alan was taller than average for his age and on the chubby side. As a true Irish boy, he had a pasty white freckled skin, and pale blue eyes. Alan was famous at school for his long, unruly, strawberry blond hair that he would practically shave off to a crew cut on the first day of every summer vacation. It may have been the only haircut he received all year long. He was also known for his occasional unpredictable panic attacks, which according to his doctor had started as a result of a traumatic experience when he was younger. His friends referred to these attacks as his PTSDs for Post Traumatic Stress Disorders. When they happened, either Rachel or Joe quickly came to his aid and were the only ones able to calm him.

The Butlers and their two sons, Alan and Tristan, had moved three years ago to the south shore of Birchwood's lake from a Los Angeles suburb. Mr. Butler, who worked out of his house as a car crash simulator engineer, had moved his family to a small town with a great community after Alan had made the local news headlines.

It had happened on a Wednesday which was early dismissal day at Alan's school. Those early dismissal days gave him almost an hour to go for a walk with their Saint Bernard, Charlie, before his older brother, Tristan, would get home from school. Alan always enjoyed walking the gentle giant, throwing the dog pine cones to fetch. Alan hadn't been chubby then, on the contrary, he was skinny and slender, looking as if he'd only grown tall and forgotten to fill out. He hadn't been shy either, he would readily answer people's questions about his Saint Bernard. The boy and his "moose" as his neighbor would say were quite the celebrity in their California neighborhood.

Alan would walk his dog, Charlie, to a green belt of grass behind his neighborhood beside a secondary road. The 50 yard wide and 2 football field long belt lined with tall bushes on each side was the ideal area to let Charlie off his leash to run freely. At the other end, it narrowed down to a little strip of dirt where it rejoined the sidewalk, and kitty-corner to the middle school baseball fields across the street.

Alan, who'd been running with Charlie the whole length of the belt, stopped and bent down with his hands on his thighs to catch his breath. He was straightening himself up when out of the corner of his eye Alan saw a boy carrying a heavy backpack walking on the sidewalk before he disappeared behind a bush. Alan called his dog to leash him and walked onto the sidewalk, just a few feet behind the boy with the heavy backpack.

Up ahead a big red pickup truck was parked on the side of the road. It was a Dodge Ram heavy duty pickup truck with dual-rear-wheel that Alan knew well; his next door neighbor owned one and spent countless hours pampering it in his driveway under his bedroom window.

Alan was pulled abruptly to the side by Charlie sniffing on a patch of grass. The dog squatted down and dropped a huge load. Alan cursed mentally, he just hated picking up after his dog. He reached for the "oops" bags in his back pocket and picked up the waste, holding his breath so that he wouldn't smell it. "C'mon, Charlie. Let's go" he said to the dog, pulling on the leash. The dog trotted happily toward Alan, bit on a piece of the leash and walked ahead carrying it proudly as if it were a huge bone. Alan smiled at his dog's silliness and looked ahead.

"Where's the kid?" Alan wondered, looking up and down the sidewalk.

The red truck was still there, but now a man was hurriedly walking around the front of it to get in the driver's seat. Although the man was of average height, he stood out by his build which made him look like he was bursting out of his clothes. One of his massive arms was completely covered in tattoos, like he was wearing a separate shirtsleeve. He wore a red Angels baseball cap with sunglasses on top and a long goatee trimmed like a triangle.

He walked faster, as a dreadful feeling was coming over him, and checked the side street he'd reached to see if the kid had turned there while he was picking up after Charlie. Alan had almost reached the truck when the man with the baseball cap pulled away in a hurry, banged a U-turn and tore down the street. Still, Alan had had enough time to see the boy staring at him, his hand pressed against the rear window of the cab in a desperate reach for help.

For a split second, Alan just stood there petrified. Then his brain started to process what he'd just witnessed and disbelief, shock, and rage all at once took over him. All he could see was the face of the kid staring back at him as the truck was speeding away and out of sight. Meanwhile, Charlie kept nudging him for more playtime, lowering the front of his body while keeping the back raised, his tail wagging furiously. Alan who was just standing in the middle of the road as if in a daze and oblivious of Charlie's tricks jumped up startled when he heard the blow of a horn just behind him. The driver was hanging out his window screaming, "Hey kid! You and your horse should get out of the middle of the road!" But Alan could only hear were muffled sounds coming out the driver's mouth, like if he had water in his ears. However, he noticed the police car that was driving toward the school to patrol at dismissal times and he frantically waved it down. Before the police officer could step out of the car, Alan had already started to explain what had just happened with great motion, raising his arms up and down and pointing down the street where he'd lost sight of the truck.

"Slow down, Kid." the patrol officer said while getting out of his cruiser, "What's your name?"

"My name is Alan Butler."

"Okay, Alan. Start again from the beginning."

"I was walking my dog down there by the sidewalk," Alan began, pointing toward the green belt, "when I saw a guy in a big, red pickup truck snatch a kid."

"Where was the kid?"

"Walking on the sidewalk in front of us."

"Can you describe the truck and what the man looked like?"

"Sure, I can." Alan replied still shaking all over but trying to stay calm. "The pickup truck is a Dodge Ram with 4 wheels in the back. The guy looked like a muscle man, and had a bunch of tattoos on one of his arms. What else?... Oh, yeah, he had on a red Angels baseball hat, too."

"Ok, and how long ago did this happen?" the officer asked, getting back inside his cruiser to use the radio.

"Five - ten minutes ago. You gotta help the kid, please!"

"Unit 2-4-PAUL-1" the officer said into his two-way radio, holding up his index finger to shush Alan while he made the radio call.

"Unit 2-4-PAUL-1 proceed." said a voice coming from the receiver.

The officer gave the location and the nature of the incident to the dispatcher, and looking at Alan, said, "Thanks for your help, Alan. Will be in touch. Go home now."

"All units stand by code Two Zero Seven Adam..." was the last thing Alan heard coming from the radio before he was pulled away by Charlie as if he were as light as feather. When he got home, he told the story to his mother who had started to get worried by his tardiness. Relieved that her son was fine, she hugged him and went into the kitchen to fix him a snack.

For the rest of the day, Alan couldn't stop thinking about the kid in the truck. He was replaying the whole thing over and over in his head, convinced that he could have done something to avert the kidnapping. Despite his parents's reassurance, he still went to bed that night deeply perturbed. After a restless night, he got up and turned on the TV to watch the local news. By then, the story was being broadcast on all channels, and a police news conference was scheduled later that day. Alan kept changing channels to get the latest information, unable to pull himself away from the screen in spite of his mother's calls to get ready for school. At last, he got up from the couch and hurried out the door to go catch his school bus.

The minute he got back home from school, he turned on the TV to catch up on the latest breaking news. He was zapping through the channels when on one local channel the anchor was saying, " A 9-year-old boy who was abducted by a stranger while walking on a sidewalk escaped from his captor after a driver recognized the suspect's truck and cut it off. The driver saw the truck description on TV and when he spotted it while driving decided to cut it off." Alan flopped onto the couch, intently listening to the report with his eyes fixed on the TV screen. The anchor concluded, "...The police said that the detailed description of the pickup truck given by a boy who was walking his dog at the time of the abduction as well as the quick reaction of the driver helped the boy escape." Excitement immediately replaced Alan's astonishment; he jumped up from the couch like he'd been propelled from an ejection seat, turned off the TV and bolted out of the room, jumping up and down with joy, screaming at the top of his lungs, "HE MADE IT! HE MADE IT!" He hugged his mother who had been alerted by the screams in the hallway, and where Charlie had been abruptly awaken from one of his many naps.

In the days that followed the moment of euphoric relief, Alan started to become more introverted, fearing to be left alone and out of familiar people's sight. He no longer took his dog for walks, and refused to join kids playing outside in the street.

He spent his free time at home playing video games or watching mindless TV shows and eating heavily. After six months of such abnormal behavior and developing a new phobia that caused Alan to have frequent full blown panic attacks, his parents decided that it was time to move out of California. So, the Butlers packed up and left town for Birchwood.

Chapter Five

By the time Gio caught up with his friends just as they were about to stop, he was completely out of breath and welcomed the break. No sooner had they reached a clearing where the vegetation wasn't as dense and oppressive, than Sam and Rachel plopped themselves onto a broken tree trunk that was lying on the ground to rest.

"Where's Alan?" Rachel asked Gio, looking in the same direction they came from.

"Dunno. He was just behind me."

"Wholly crap. Where is he?" Joe said worriedly, a little too loud, and as a dreadful thought crossed his mind added in a quieter voice, "..think the old man Greenpound got him?"

"What are you talking about! Of course not!" Sam said dismissively, getting up and wiping the sweat off her forehead, "He'll be here any second, now."

"You're right. Okay, let's just wait a bit longer, then." Joe agreed.

Rachel got up and said with her usual quiet and collected tone, "I don't hear him at all. Maybe he took another direction." She looked around the clearing and back at her friends, "So, I thing we should just go back home, it'll be easier to reunite with him there."

"She's right." Gio said, eager to get out of the woods, too, "Let's go back. I bet Alan turned around and is already back home."

"Guys... Come check this out!" Sam called out from somewhere in the bushes. She had left the clearing and wandered off to go look for Alan.

They looked at each other bemused as none of them had noticed Sam's disappearance. Then, they started to move at once toward the direction of her voice and trudged through a tunnel-like path of vegetation, carefully stepping into one another's footsteps like Maasai warriors on a lion hunt. They found Sam standing next to a dilapidated barn, peeping inside one of its glassless windows.

"What are you looking at?" Joe asked Sam when he joined her by the window frame.

"That!" she said pointing at the vehicle parked inside the barn.

They all jammed the window to take a look. To their astonishment, they saw a seemingly brand new Buggy sitting in the back of the barn under a homemade accordion umbrella. It was a convertible vehicle with two seats in the front and the back section covered by a custom pickup bed made of metal with a criss-cross pattern. The buggy sat low to the ground and had a rollover bar mounted on the doorless frame. Two spot lights were mounted on top of the bar on each side of a skull bust statue. To finish off the custom design, a small yellow and red triangle shaped flag was attached to a tall pole in the back of the Buggy.

"Whoa! What is it?" Gio asked no one in particular, "Let's go inside and check it out."

"Are you out of your mind?" Rachel said, barring the glassless opening with her outstretched arm, "This is Crazy Old Greenpound's barn we're talking about, and there's no way I will let you go inside. What do you think he'll do if he finds you in there? I wouldn't give much for your skin, then."

"Huh? What does that mean? Is this another one of your self-made sayings?" Gio asked her, not moving away from the window frame.

"She means: Run, if you value your skin. C'mon guys, let's go find Alan, the poor dude is still out there running to save HIS skin." Joe said, quite proud of his analogy.

"No kidding! Greenpound will probably blow a gasket if he finds us snooping around his barn!" Sam pitched in, shaking her head, her bangs slightly undulating against the side of her face.

"Looks cool, though!" Joe said as he was at last stepping back from the window, "Who could have believed the old fart had a set of wheels like these!"

"What do you think he does with it? Drive it? That'd be a sight! Whoa, the old fart ... hahaha...driving around...hahaha... in his 4 wheel Moped...!" Gio said, holding his stomach because he was laughing so hard. Sam bursted out laughing and everyone else did, too, as a sort of nervous reaction.

"... one hand holding the steering wheel and the other pumping the stick high above his head... hahaha... " Joe joined in, howling with laughter, pumping his fist up in the air, "... his face matching the skull on the rollover bar...hahaha... with his hair blown back by the wind..." Unable to talk through the giggles any longer, he only managed to mimic what Mr. Greenpound might look like by pulling his cheeks back with his hands. At that moment, he collapsed with hysterics in a fetal position clasping his hands over his stomach.

Rachel, who was the first one to recover from the laughing fit, wiped off her teary eyes with a neat handkerchief pulled from her front pocket of her khaki capris, and turned around to go look for a trail that might lead them back to the lake. During their frantic run, they had managed to get completely disoriented and lost in the middle of the woods.

The barn stood out as an island in the middle of tall old trees. Its red roof contrasted greatly with the various shades of green of the surrounding vegetation. Back in the days, the owners of the property had used the barn as a storage facility and a shelter for animals. However, during the years that had followed the ruin of the family, the barn had no longer functioned as a multi-use structure, and had therefore been left to fall to pieces. As a result, only its four walls remained standing; the front double sliding doors had rotted and disintegrated exposing the rollers on which it hung and the hinges to corrosion. Now, the opening was boarded up with rough plank wood. The barn's back door was smaller and hung on wobbly hinges that threatened to fall every time the door swung open. None of the windows had glass panels or shutters and were boarded up as well, except for the one on the right-hand side of the barn.

Suddenly, the wind started to pick up, blowing hard in the branches making the tree tops move back and forth like shaken out feather dusters. The leaves on the ground whirled around in unison while the undergrowth shook and rustled crazily.

"Whoa, looks like there's a storm moving in. We gotta go!" Gio said with urgency in his voice.

"Yeah, but which way?" Sam asked him, tucking her bangs furiously behind her ear to stop it from flying all over her face.

"Huh...it's a good question..." Gio answered, his eyes darting back and forth.

"Let's go this way." Rachel suggested, pointing toward a small two-lane trail carved through the woods, "I bet that when Mr. Greenpound takes his 4 wheel Moped down to the lake, he goes that way."

"Sounds good to me. Let's go before we get drenched!" Joe said at the exact moment that the sky flashed with lightening and exploded with thunder.

"Crap! We need to get somewhere clear of trees, FAST." Sam said already running back toward the barn. They all followed her to the windowless frame where they hesitated for only a split-second to get inside the barn before another deafening thunder cracked above their heads. They hurriedly climbed over the window frame, and from inside stood watching the rain fall hard, quickly forming puddles of mud.

"Call Alan, Gio." Joe said, worried about their missing friend getting caught in the storm, "Just need to make sure he's ok."

"No way, man! I'm not using my phone during a storm like this. I'll fry on the spot!"

"Boy, some friends, we are!" Sam said in a self-mocking voice while turning away from the window and eyeing the inside of the barn.

"I agree with Joe." Rachel said matter-of-fact, "Besides, I don't think that Alan has his phone with him, today."

"What? What makes you say that, Rachel?" Gio asked her, eager to get everyone's attention focusing on something other than on his cowardly excuse.

"Well, the first thing someone would do if they got stranded or lost would be to call for help or direction. But he hasn't called any of us, therefore I'm assuming that he doesn't have his phone with him."

"Hmm... Come to think of it, now, you're right. Plus, didn't he tell us yesterday, Joe, that his battery was dead and he couldn't find the charger anywhere?" Gio said, frowning his thick eyebrows at Joe.

"Yeah, that's right, Gio. I forgot all about it, but now that you mention it, yeah... he wanted me to lend him my charger. Huh!"

"All ready then, that settles the question." Sam said kneeling by the passenger side of the Buggy, "Check out this machine, it's quite amazing."

Outside the rain was still pounding on the barn's washed out walls, though the time between thunder was elapsing. They all moved as one body to the back of the barn where the Buggy was parked. It was very dark inside the barn, especially in the back, away from the only source of light. On the wall behind the Buggy there was a workshop complete with a work bench table and all sorts of tools hanging from the pegboard mounted on the table.

"Whoa, can't see squat, it's as dark as a cow's gut out here!" Gio said, walking past the Buggy to the workshop area to go look for a flashlight.

Looking up, Gio spotted a hanging industrial light attached to a chain. He grabbed it, and gently pulled down on it to switch it on. It was a powerful light and the whole barn instantly lit up, revealing the condition of the poorly kept building. The stripped down hardwood floor was covered with oil stains and animal droppings. The damaged roof let the water leak into a water fall in many different spots in the barn which accumulated into a muddy mess at the lowest point of the sloped floor.

"Ugh...It's disgusting in here! And it smells like crap!" Sam said, standing up from the only dry spot of the barn, holding her nose with her fingers.

"Guys! Come back here!" Joe called from behind the benchwork table wall in the back of the barn. He was standing in a small room that seemed to have been added to the original building in later years.

The room was a small cubic area with shelves on three of the four white painted walls. An opening in the middle of the last wall was connecting to the barn. The shelves were neatly organized and packed with wires, electric tools, paints and a full assortments of bolts, drill bits and nails. Each shelf had under mount lighting that casted a glow over the tools and brightened the room overall.

"Whoa, what've we got here?" Gio said, touching every objects on the shelves.

There was a metallic pickup truck toolbox that completely filled the bottom of one shelf. The locked down toolbox lid could be opened by just clicking a button.

"Wonder what's in here." Sam said, pushing on the button. To her amazement, the lid self-rose and revealed its content.

"Wow!" Rachel gasped, holding her hand in front of her mouth, her small eyes wide open.

Surprised by Rachel's unusual sign of emotion, the two boys gathered around the box to see what was inside. The box contained books!

"What?! Books!" Gio said, disappointed by the box's unexciting content, "What's so amazing about books? My dad has a whole bunch of paperbacks in boxes in the basement, and you don't see me make a big deal about it!"

"As if it were the same..." Rachel snapped at him, reaching inside the box and delicately picking up one of the biggest book. It was a leather bound hard cover book titled The Birds of America by John James Audubon that had been published in 1827. The book contained life-size hand-colored prints of birds of the United States.

Rachel who was an avid reader enjoyed reading books of all types of genres, but she especially loved ancient books. Her fascination for old books had started when she'd held for the first time a soft leather bound copy of Huckleberry Finn during an antique book fair at her library. She had loved the softness of the green leather cover, and the lettering in black on the front and gold on the spine of the book. It had amazed her to hold something so old and kept in such good condition.

"Whatever!" Gio said, dismissively on his way out of the room, "But F-Y-I, it's not thundering anymore and we should get going. Unless of course, you'd rather stay here and spend a cozy afternoon looking through parchment books and wait for Greenpound to join us LATER!"

The mention of the dreaded man's name jolted them back into the present. Rachel regrettably put the book back in the box, closed the lid reverently and left the room with one last longing look back at the box.

They left the barn the same way they'd entered it, and after making sure the way was clear, ran down the trail, tucking their heads in their shoulders to avoid the assault of the pounding rain.

Chapter Six

It was no longer as dark since the low-hanging storm clouds had moved away. However, the rain kept pouring down. Fortunately, the wind had quit howling in the trees, giving Alan, who was lying face down in a puddle of mud, a brief but welcomed relief.

Alan's world had quickly fallen apart. The demise had began when he was dropped to the ground after a branch had whacked him across the chest just as he was looking over his shoulder to check if Mr. Greenpound was gaining on him. He had lost his balance and hit the ground shoulder first, smashing his head hard on the ground which had knocked the wind out of him. A deep feeling of hopelessness had then taken a hold of him which had felt as if the walls were slowly closing in on him. By then, Alan was gasping for breath, his eyes shut tight, and dreading the inevitable moment when Mr. Greenpound would grab him by the back of his shirt and lift him off the ground and drag him to God-knows where and do God-knows what.

Half unconscious with fear, Alan lost his sense of time and place, and almost messed himself when he heard the first boom of thunder. Panicked, he wanted to run as far and fast as possible, but pushing on his arms to get up sent a jolt of shear pain running through his neck and shoulder. Feeling a sense of utter defeat, he just laid there under the summer storm, getting drenched by the pounding rain. Around him the tree branches were hanging low toward the ground with water dripping off the leaves like a leaking faucet making puddles on the muddy trail.

Eventually, his survival instincts kicked in, and a familiar little voice in his head kept repeating louder and louder, "It's only in your head, nothing's gonna happen." He tried to stay calm and focused his attention on his breathing using the techniques he had learned from his numerous counseling sessions. Slowly, as he regained control of his mind, he started to picture Rachel holding his hand, talking to him in her quiet voice to help him overcome his panic attack like she had done so many times in the past.

Rachel was the Komatsus only child. Her parents were Hawaiian native of Japanese descent but now lived on the South side of the lake, next door to the Jones family. She was a tall and slender girl with thick shoulder-length black hair. Her intelligent black eyes calmly stared behind thin silver rimmed glasses and she always seemed to take notice of everything that came into sight. Although usually quiet and seemingly lost in her thoughts - Rachel only talked when absolutely necessary - she was quite the attentive and thoughtful friend. She'd known kids in Birchwood her own age most of her life, but it wasn't until recently that she had forged lasting friendships and become part of their group. Rachel was an excellent student, studious and dedicated to working hard at school. Her parents had enrolled her in a private school the first day of Kindergarten, thinking that it would provide their daughter with an outstanding education. By the end of elementary school, Mrs. Komatsu had noticed that Rachel had become withdrawn and wondered why her daughter never had any friends over, or was invited to any birthday parties or playdates with kids at her school; she had become a shy loner who had no friends. The only time Rachel appeared happy and outgoing was during their frequent family vacations to Hawaii. Every morning during their visit, Rachel and her mother would share an hour of intense body surfing in the warm waters of Maui; Rachel loved the thrill of riding the waves and the feeling of being a part of the ocean. It was on one of those mornings, as they were coming back from the beach, that Rachel had confided to her mother about her unhappiness at school. The confession had been sparked by walking past a group of kids sprawled out on beach towels, laughing while playing cards and enjoying the morning sun. Rachel quickly turned her head away to hide her teary eyes, but her mother had already seen them.

"What's wrong, Sweety?" she asked concerned, affectionally putting her arm around her daughter's shoulders and pulling her close. Rachel first resisted her mother's embrace, brusquely wiping away tears with her hand, yet unsuccessful at stopping the sob from rising into her throat. Finally, she broke down and with sobs and tears told her mother how she was being teased at school by other kids, "they make fun of me...say nasty things about my eyes...about my skin color...about my hair that looks like chop sticks...". She was crying hard, big tears dropping onto the hot sidewalk where they dried almost instantly, but still continued, "about skinny girls getting blown away on windy days... about being too smart...". Looking up into her mother's eyes, tears flowing down her cheeks, she pleaded, "Mom, please let me go to a different school. Please?"

It broke Mrs. Komatsu's heart to see the hurt in her daughter's eyes, and with tears welling up in her own eyes, she promised to switch her to another school the minute they got back home. So, as promised, Rachel enrolled in the public school in the middle of the school year. The transition had been a work in progress as could be anticipated; making friends, even though she already knew most of the kids, proved to be the most difficult part due to her shyness. At least, she was no longer teased and ridiculed, which in Rachel's book was a major step in the right direction. She'd been at her new school for about two months, when during lunch one day a big commotion took place at the next table. Alan, who had lived next door to Rachel for several years, was sitting under the lunch table, curled up in a ball holding his legs and rocking back and forth with his face buried in his knees. The lunch lady had tried to make him move out from under the table by gently pulling him by the elbow at first, but after unsuccessful attempts she gave up and decided to go get the principal. Some of the kids who were still eating when Alan lost control, were now crowding around the table under which Alan continued rocking back and forth. They were elbowing each other, egging each other on by making crazy faces and cracking jokes. Alan rocked faster and faster as the fuss around him got louder and rowdier, feeling that his chest was about to burst into millions of pieces every time he took a breath. He was sweating heavily which made his soaked T-shirt stick to his body. Lines of sweat were dripping from his hairline into his neck.

Rachel stood up and slowly walked toward the table where kids were still making fun of Alan. "Get lost!" she ordered a few kids standing in her path by the table, "What's wrong with all of you? Can't you see that something's wrong!" Surprised and intimidated by her tone of voice (they had never even heard her speak before), the kids stepped out of her way and stopped talking at once. She knelt down and crawled on her hands and knees until she was within Alan's reach. She sat opposite him and without thinking, she gently touched his hand that was clenched on his knee.

"Alan, it's me Rachel." she said in a low and compassionate voice, "It's okay, you are fine, nothing will happen to you, trust me!", and carried on with her voice level and in a more soothing tone, "C'mon, it's only in your head, you're having a panic attack. No big deal!" After a while, she could see that his body started to relax, blood was returning to his white knuckles and his breathing was almost back to normal. The Lunch Lady with the principal in tow were coming through the cafeteria area where the noise level had reduced down to whispers and a level where one could hear a pin drop.

"Alan, we gotta move. The principal is headed this way. Are you okay?" Rachel said looking into his eyes with concerned kindness.

Still out of breath, Alan slightly nodded his head and followed Rachel. They were just pulling themselves up from under the table when the principal accosted them: "What's going on here? What are you two doing under the table?" Then taking a good look at Alan, he asked in a softer tone, "Alan? Are you okay? You are completely drenched with sweat and so flushed...Are you running a fever? Come on, I'll take you to the nurse's office, okay Bud?" Again, Alan nodded and followed the principal, keeping his eyes to the ground in fear of seeing the mocking faces of all the other kids.

Later that afternoon, on the bus ride back home, Alan walked to the back where Rachel was sitting by herself and sat down in the seat next to her: "Thanks, I'll never forget what you did today!" he told her, looking her straight in the eyes.

She stared back at him: "You're welcome." She shrugged her shoulders slightly and added, raising her thin eyebrow, "Don't make it a habit, okay!...and... um... you may want to change your shirt when you get home!" She smiled timidly, hoping that Alan knew she was only kidding, which wasn't her forte. Alan nodded his head up and down, again, but this time with a laugh. From that day on, Alan and Rachel had been close friends, always watching each other's back; Alan wouldn't let anyone make hurtful comments to Rachel about her appearance, and Rachel would be by Alan's side anytime he would show signs of another attack. As a result of that unspoken arrangement, both Rachel and Alan were having less worries and enjoyed hanging out with other kids and just having fun.

Now alone in the woods, Alan hung onto that memory of the table incident imagining Rachel holding his hand and her soothing voice calming his hyperventilation until he no longer felt short of breath. His shoulder and head were still hurting pretty bad, but this kind of pain was nothing in comparison to the feeling of the elephant standing on his chest not being able to breathe. So, slowly he shifted his weight onto the side that wasn't hurting, tucked his leg carefully under him, and pushed it outward while simultaneously lifting his upper body and finally rolled into a sitting position facing the opposite direction. His body was so stiff with pain from just rolling onto his butt that he wondered how he could possibly stand up and much less run back home. He couldn't tell if the water dripping from his face was from the sweat caused by the pain or the rain. Nevertheless, he wiped his face off with his muddy hand, streaking it with mud like face paint on a football player. He couldn't believe his eyes as he scanned the area: Mr. Greenpound was nowhere to be found. All he could see was the water dripping from tree branches, bushes covered with pearls of water, and raindrops splashing into half-hazardly formed brownish puddles along the trail. Past his initial amazement, he got a jolt of adrenaline that sprang him to his feet painlessly. He danced around jumping from one foot to the other, but he hadn't quite completed a full circle doing his Chainé dance, which consisted of a series of quick turns, when he stopped dead in his tracks with one leg still bent up in the air, and let out a sharp cry: "What the...?"

A little ways down the path, in the ditch and under a huge fern plant, Alan saw something red sticking on the plant's stem. He lowered his leg, turned his head around a couple of times to make sure the path was clear and took a few cautious steps toward the fern.

Nothing moved.

He took another few steps, lowering his head while squinting his eyes to see better.

Still no movement.

He was now within arms reach and he still couldn't tell what it could be. So, bending at the waist and extending his good arm, Alan quickly jerked the wet fern to the side using his thumb and index finger.

"Oh, crap!" he said out loud. Startled, Alan jumped back but lost his balance and he fell back on his butt, again. In front of him and fully visible now was Mr. Greenpound laying face up in the ditch. Scrambling back to his feet, momentarily forgetting his battered shoulder and head, he spun around and was about to take off down the path.

"H..H...Help..." Mr. Greenpound managed to whisper, his gray face twisted bizarrely to the right and contorted with pain and fear. Alan noticed that the old man's right hand was clutching his chest as he kept trying to extend the other one upward in a sign for help. His wet hair was pulled back away from his face, as if he'd just walked out of the ocean and squeezed the water out of his hair with both hands.

Alan hesitated, swaying from side to side, uncertain what to do next. He knew that the old man was crazy, and this could just be a ruse to grab him without much effort. Or, did he REALLY need help?

"Pl...ea...se...hh...he...help..." Mr. Greenpound said, dropping his limp arm to his side like a wet noodle.

Alan thought of all the stories he'd heard throughout the years about the old man's craziness and lack of tolerance for kids, especially trespassing ones. But in the end, he also remembered how he'd just felt earlier, face down in the mud and lost to the world, and how he'd have loved to have someone help him.

"Mr. Greenpound, I want to help you, but I don't know what to do." Alan said to the old man, kneeling next to him and pushing the fern away from his face.

"Call...9-...1-...1."

"I don't have my phone, the battery died yesterday." Alan apologized, "But I'll go get help. I'll be back."

Chapter Seven

The storm moved out as quickly as it had rolled in. The rain subsided to a drizzle for a little while, then finally stopped all together. The forest was now glistening in the golden rays of the sun playing through the branches. A lifting mist lightly brushed the undergrowth like a sheer thin white veil and carried an explosion of scents of wet leaves, moss, sap and fragrant flowers.

Rachel, who was leading the group toward the lake, stopped when the trail they were following made a 90 ̊ turn.

"Where should we go now? I don't think that we should follow the trail anymore." Rachel wondered out loud, looking all around her.

"Oh? ...and why not?" Gio asked her, wringing the water from his soaking wet T-shirt.

"We are heading North toward the south shore of the lake, but the trail goes Eastward from here on. So, if we keep on the trail, we'll end up somewhere else than where we need to go." Rachel explained, wiping off her glasses with her wet shirt, which didn't help much, and giving up just hung them on her shirt collar.

"Oh, really, Sherlock! And you know that because of why?" Gio asked Rachel scornful, bending his head sideways and pressing his index finger on his lips.

"Because, dumbass, there is more moss and fewer branches on the north face of trees! Anyone who's passed the 2nd grade knows that!" Sam retorted, bending down at the waist to shake the water out of her hair.

"Okay, let's all chill out." Joe said in conciliatory tone, "I think that Rachel is right and that we should go straight and cut through the woods again."

Without waiting for any replies, Joe started walking straight ahead, pushing wet branches away with both arms extended in a circular motion. Rachel and Sam followed him down the newly-made little path where they took turn holding back the overhanging branches to avoid wet whiplashes. Gio closed the ranks of their little group, still mulling over which direction lead to the lake.

The humidity in the forest was so thick that even the diagonal sun rays seemed unable to reach the ground. They walked silently for a while, lost in their thoughts. Beside a few branches cracking occasionally under their steps, the forest was dead silent - even birds kept quiet - which accentuated even more the surreal feeling of the moment.

Joe stopped abruptly without warning with both arms outstretched on either side, startling his friends who bumped into one another.

"Shh..." he whispered, moving his index finger in front of his mouth.

They listened attentively and heard a faint sound up ahead. Watching closely every step they took, they inched their way closer to the source of the sound. Peeping through the thick foliage, they saw a small foldable camping table with a folded chair leaning on it. On the table sat a small transistor radio with rabbit-ear antennas sticking out that was playing oldies music. They exchanged quick glances, realizing that they had reached one of the two post that guarded the trail. But which one was it? The one at the south side or the other one? Without a word, Joe tilted his head to the side, pointing his chin upward and fixed his eyes on the Buick Le Sabre parked nearby. They followed his gaze and saw Ethel Perkins stepping outside of her car.

Ethel had lived in Birchwood for decades, ever since the early 50's, and to this day still lived in the same house. Everyone in the community loved the old lady who could be seen walking briskly every morning holding a cup of coffee in one hand and the newspaper in the other. Although, she wore a different color sweatsuit from her huge collection of matching sweats in all shades of the rainbow on her daily walks, she looked as if she'd just rolled out of bed and forgot to comb her hair. A big patch of flattened gray hair remained where she'd laid her head on the pillow and stood out like a dormant volcano crater in her bright-red colored hair. Everything about Ethel was old: her house, her car and her body. But her gold flecked green eyes buried in her furrowed face were always alert and kind. When she smiled, her thin colorless lips would draw back revealing coffee stained front teeth that seemed to be barely hanging like keys of an old piano. Yet the old lady had decided a long time ago that she wouldn't let age run her down and therefore had always been involved in many different activities within the small community. So, when the board had voted to appoint a guard at each end of the trail for the summer, she'd eagerly volunteered for the job and had gotten it. Every day, rain or shine, she'd drive down to the trailhead, and sit there guarding the trail for hours. Her first week had been tough and boring without much to do other than read, which had become strenuous lately. So the following week, she'd brought with her a table and a chair, some sandwiches from the deli, and an old radio she'd found up in her attic. During the occasional rain showers, she'd just go sit in her car and wait until the sun would shine again.

Quickly crouching down when they saw Ethel walk toward her table, Sam turned on the heels of her Converse and checked out her surroundings for the best way to retreat unseen back into the woods.

"Ethel keeps watch on the north side." Sam whispered, and pointing her index finger like elite commandos silent hand gestures during raids, she cautiously led the way.

"Damn, this is getting good! C'mon everybody! Get down to the ground and use your elbows to pull forward. It's commando time, man!" Gio hissed, slithering about in the wet ground cover, pretending to escape from behind enemy lines.

"What is wrong with you, Gio? Why do you always have to make fun of everything?" Rachel asked him, still squatting, yet holding back her laughter.

"Really?... Really? Jeezo, what do you think this is? Afghanistan? We're talking about good old Ethel, here." Gio said in disbelief, standing up and holding out his hands palms up, "Wholly crap, what is she gonna do? Run after us and throw her cup of coffee at us? Yeah, we could all look like her with coffee stained hair sticking up like turkey butts!"

Rachel was the first one to crack up and soon they were all roaring with laughter again, but desperately trying to keep their lips together to smother the noise.

"Go! Go! Move out!" Joe joked, running bent over at the waist with his head turned sideways, and flailing his arm in a semicircular motion over his head with tight held fingers extended.

They pretended to disperse commando style, giggling all the way until they thought they were safely out of Ethel's sight and earshot.

"Ok, let's get back on the trail and follow it to the south end. There, we'll just circle the post to avoid the other guard and walk back home. By the way, who's there today, do you guys know?" Joe asked them, catching his breath.

"Nope." Sam replied, lunging down to pull leaves and needles off her untied shoe laces, "But it shouldn't be a big deal to go around whomever is sitting there. We'll just walk behind the parking lot; it's so overgrown back there that it'll be easy to take cover anywhere to avoid being seen."

"Whoa, Sam. Who would have known you'd turned into G.I. Jane under pressure! I never took you for the military type. Impressive!"

"Whatever, Gio." Sam replied, shoving him playfully on the shoulder.

"Seriously, we should get going. I just want to make sure that Alan went back home and that he's okay." Rachel said heading back toward the trail.

The trail was one car width wide and well maintained. Gravel filled the several potholes scattered along the way, and the weekly crew of volunteer landscapers kept the bushes and wild tree branches under control. The canopy of vegetation only shadowed parts of the trail snaking around the westside of the lake, but failed to let the sun shine over the several areas where it met the lakeshore. The area had been appointed with rustic benches cut into tree logs allowing hikers to rest and enjoy the scenic view of the lake and the town beyond during the day, as well as breathtaking sunsets in the early evening.

On their way following the trail, Joe and his friends were talking about their remarkable trek that had led them to the discovery of Greenpound's 4 wheel Moped, the trunkful of ancient books and the barn turned into a full work station with workbench and all.

"Hey! Did you hear that?" Sam asked, cocking her head slightly, her long bangs dangling before her eye.

"No, GI Jane. What is it? Gio answered sending all but Sam into chuckles at Sam's new nickname, and holding Joe and Rachel back with both arms extended, he jerked his head side to side like a windmill with his eyes really wide open.

"Shut up, Gio." Joe told him, serious again, pushing his arm away from his chest and taking a few steps closer toward the edge of the trail. "I hear people talking back there."

Intrigued and guided by the voices, they took a few more steps on the trail before veering to the right, toward the shoreline.

"Whoa, aren't we by the Tree?" Gio mumbled, frowning his thick eyebrows and slowly scanning his surroundings.

Chapter Eight

Alan took off zigzagging around muddy puddles strewn randomly down the private road. By the time he reached the cannon at the end of Mr. Greenpound's private road, Alan was sweating profusely from every pore in his body. Unfazed by it, he continued at full speed as if supernatural power boosters had just kicked in, adrenaline rushing madly through him, and in no time got to the end of the road where he took a lefthand turn onto his own street. "Almost there. Almost there." he repeated to himself, breathing heavily, feeling as if his lungs were on fire.

A car driving up Yavapai Lane stopped within inches of hitting him when he unexpectedly crossed the street right in front of the startled driver. "Whoa, that was a close one.", he thought, smiling faintly at the white-as-a-ghost driver as a way of an apology.

He only slowed down when he arrived at his own house to push the door open and rushed inside much like cold air in winter. The smell of freshly backed cookies still lingered in the air which almost made him forget about Mr. Greenpound.

"Alan? Is that you, Honey Bunny?" his mother called out from a room in the back of the house.

"When will she EVER stop calling me that stupid name!" he thought annoyed, "Yes, Mom, it's me."

"Oh, good. We're in the kitchen. We're just about ready to take the chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. Come and join us. I'll pour you a tall glass of milk." Mrs. Butler said sweetly.

Although tempted by the sweet treat - chocolate chip cookies were definitely his favorite - Alan pushed the thought aside and raced upstairs, 2 steps at the time, to his parents' bedroom where he hurled himself across the bed to grab the phone on his father's nightstand. "We?" he thought puzzled, "Oh! Right.. the Jones' kids are here!" he remembered while dialing 9-1-1. So many things had happened since earlier in the day that he'd completely forgotten all about Tic-Tac-Toe Bob firing his uncle's gun which had sent one of his brothers to the hospital.

"9-1-1, what is your emergency?" a female dispatcher said routinely on the other end of the line.

"One of my neighbors is having a heart attack." Alan said rapidly in a high-pitched voice, pressing the phone against his ear.

"Do you have an address?"

"It's a private road off of Yavapai Lane. Hurry up, please, the old man is in the ditch and he can barely breathe..."

"Okay, honey. Are you there with him right now?"

"No, I'm at my house right now because I didn't have my cell phone with me."

"Do you know the name of the private road?"

"I think it's..umm... Apache or Arapahoe, something like that."

"There is an Arapahoe Trail off of Yavapai Lane."

"Yeah, yeah, that's it. Please, hurry."

"Okay, Honey. Is anyone there with your neighbor?"

"No, no one is. He's just laying in the ditch all by himself! Oh my god, I'm freaking out! I gotta go back there. Please, hurry up."

"Okay, help is on the way."

"Oh, I think I can hear the ambulance coming now... Gotta . Bye."

"Bye. Bye."

Alan dropped the phone on the bed then bolted down the stairs like a fury. Mrs. Butler, who'd stepped into the modest entrance hall wondering what was delaying her son from joining them in the kitchen, heard his heavy steps running down the stairs. She was about to say something when he flew past her, saying over his shoulder, "Gotta go back to Greenpound's. Be back in a bit...", before the door slammed shut behind him. Stunned, she just stood there for a brief moment, hands on her hips, staring at the closed front door, then she turned around and walked back to the kitchen, thinking that her son had come a long way since the incident in California.

Retracing his steps, Alan ran back to Arapahoe Trail as fast as he could despite his tired legs and fried lungs. The firetruck was already racing down the small road, sirens screaming with all lights flashing when Alan met the ambulance by the cannon at the beginning of the private road.

"He's in the ditch a little further down the road on your left." Alan yelled panting to the paramedic who had rolled down his widow when he'd seen Alan running like a bat out of hell, pointing his finger down the road.

A few seconds later, as he was fast approaching the spot where the old man had collapsed, he could see that the firetruck was pulled over sideways on the road, just in front of the ambulance. Three paramedics were kneeling by Mr. Greenpound, who to Alan looked even more ashen than when he'd left him a few minutes ago.

Alan addressed the paramedic who was performing CPR by compressing Mr. Greenpound's chest with his arms extended, one hand over the other: "Is he going to be okay?"

"I don't know, kid." the man answered, beads of sweat forming on his forehead, still thrusting rhythmatically on the old man's chest. Another EMT was kneeling by the ill man's head, slowly pumping the bag attached to the mask held over Mr. Greenpound's mouth to help him breath, while the third one was removing small suction cups that were wired to a portable electrocardiogram from his chest.

"Jim, we're ready, here. Bring the gurney over." the man called out to his coworker who was rummaging through the back of the ambulance, after he'd quit pushing on Mr. Greenpound's sternum.

The four paramedics effortlessly lifted the old man onto the gurney and wheeled him to the back of the ambulance.

"Can I ride with him?" Alan asked the ambulance driver, pointing his chin toward the vehicle's rear door as he was already moving toward the back, "I don't want him to be all alone, right now."

"Okay, hop on in." was all Alan heard before the backdoors banged shut behind him. No sooner was he sitting next to the EMT busy monitoring Mr. Greenpound's heartbeat than the driver banged a U-turn and peeled out with gravel spewing everywhere and all sirens screaming.

"Mr. Greenpound, you're going to be okay. I know it!" Alan said to the old man fighting for his life.

Mr. Greenpound fixed his half-closed eyes on the chubby sweaty boy sitting by his side who was looking back at him with a grave expression on his red flushed round face. He didn't know how long he'd been laying in the wet ditch, but he knew that without the help of this short red haired kid, he wouldn't have ended up in the back of the ambulance that was rushing him now to the hospital.

"Thank...you!" Mr. Greenpound managed to articulate under the mask held over his mouth, and reaching out a small veiny hand that was covered with light brown spots, he took Alan's hand and tried to squeeze it. Covering Mr. Greenpound's bony hand with his own, Alan leaned closer and said, "You're welcome. Don't worry, you're going to be all right now. But you shouldn't be talking, you need to save your strength, okay?".

The old man acknowledged by blinking his eyes a couple of times, then closed them altogether. Alan thought the old man may have just then died, but looking over to the ECG machine, he was reassured by the wiggly lines on the display. Mr. Greenpound remained motionless for the remainder of the ride to the hospital.

Chapter Nine

In the sky, a few scattered white puffy clouds were all that remained of the thunderstorm. The air was crisp and fresh which was typical of the aftermath of torrential rain that had pounded the forest. Yet no one noticed the fresh forest scents, or the cotton-puff clouds in the sky. All that Joe and his friends were focused on was moving closer unnoticed to the group of kids that were hanging out by the Tree. Soon, they spotted the small island sticking out from the lake only a few swim strokes away from shore. The island was in fact a big rock shaped like a pyramid with patches of moss sticking to the ledges and a few small trees clinging to its top. Although, it was big enough to conceal a portion of the shoreline, its upside-down-iceberg-like shape made it practically unaccessible.

"Can you see anything?" Gio whispered to both Sam and Joe who were pulling down leafy twigs in front of them for better view.

"Kinda." Sam whispered back, carefully tiptoeing closer to the shoreline.

"Let me see." Gio said, pushing himself forward and sweeping a small leafy branch away from his face.

Joe was about to take another step when Gio pushed a branch away which instantly cleared the obstructed view. He froze on the spot. There she was!

Maria was sitting on a small rock next to the biggest tree in the forest in the middle of a group of teenagers, like a queen surrounded by her court. Every time she laughed, she threw her head back, letting her brown curls slightly brush her lower back. She had tied her shirt tails in a knot above her tan stomach and left the top unbuttoned, thus showing her red bikini top. Her long shapely tan legs were spread apart in a V with her pointed feet resting on top of her flip-flops.

"Jeezo! Who is your sister trying to impress with that kind of outfit." Sam asked Gio without taking her eyes off Maria.

"Shut up, Sam!" Joe hissed, annoyed all the sudden at Sam; he loved her outfit.

"Easy, there, Chester. Don't bite my head off. What's with you?" Sam asked Joe, switching her attention to him while keeping an eye on Maria and her friends.

"It's just that Joe doesn't appreciate it when people talk negatively about Maria." Rachel offered in her usual informative way.

"Why?" Sam asked confused, then as if a light had been turned on, she looked at Joe sideways, and said cutely, "...Ohhhhhhhhhhh! I get it now. You LIKE her. Whoa! She's so out of your league, Dude, it's not even funny!"

To Joe's embarrassment, he tuned an intense shade of red and sternly kept his eyes on the ground in hope of finding a hole that he could crawl into.

"..Hey, did you guys hear something from over there in the bushes?" they heard a kid from the group say.

"...No...Why?You did, Tristan?" they heard Maria answer.

"...I tell you, someone's there..."

"...So? Who cares. It's probably some kids. Let them watch us. Come over here and kiss me like there's no tomorrow, okay?"

Gio was ready to burst with shame. How could his sister be so flirtatious and careless, he thought, when she knew perfectly well that their father would be beside himself if he even knew she was dating. Instead of ducking like his friends when they thought they'd been discovered, he just stood there, staring. Besides Maria, the group included 3 other girls, all of them lightly clothed with plenty of skin showing. The boys, who outnumbered the girls, displayed countless crazy stunts to outdo each other trying to impress them. One of them, a tall boy with a chiseled body, was swinging from a rope attached to a branch, pumping his legs back and forth. When he reached the desired momentum, he let go, his legs going around into a back flip and entered the water as straight as a pencil.

Joe grabbed his friend's forearm and pulled him down, "Get down!" he hissed, "I don't want them to know we're here."

"Dude, you should see the platform they built up there." Gio said impressed, momentarily forgetting his sister, "They've used two branches as support for the platform, and 4, no, 6... I can't tell from here... metallic ropes looped at each corner to hold it into place. It's tight!"

"Huh?" Joe uttered, standing up to take a look.

From their hidden spot, they could see the platform that Gio had just described. It was a big square shaped platform made of plank boards nailed tightly together, covered with floorboards and supported by two branches sticking out perpendicular to the massive trunk. A metallic rope was looped around each of the corner, and secured on 3 upper branches. The platform was perched up high in the tree and only accessible by a rope ladder that was connected to a rope pulley system. Some sheets of plywood were leaning against the trunk down on the ground, under the platform to protect them from the rain. "Probably to build the walls with." Joe thought to himself, also noticing the 2 big rolls of stainless steel cable sitting on the ground next to an unzipped backpack in which tools were visible.

Suddenly, Tristan who'd popped up out of nowhere just stood there in front of them with a triumphant expression on his face: "Oh my! What do we have here! A couple of peeping Toms or should I say peeping O's?" he said dramatically, holding the bushes wide open with both hands, and scaring them half to death. Satisfied with his effect, he yelled over his shoulder, "Look, guys. I give you: The Nerd Squad!"

"Where did he come from?" Joe wondered, as he and his friends exchanged bewildered looks.

"I knew it!" Tristan went on, combing his long blonde surfer hair back with his hand, "You little twerps! Always snooping around, aren't you?" then realizing that his brother wasn't with them, he asked, "Where's the missing nerd of the bunch?"

"You're so lame, Tristan! I just don't see how you and Alan can share any DNA, I swear!" Sam snapped back, "And, F-Y-I, you may want to play it down, cause you're not allowed back here, either!" she said and leaning sideways to see past him, added, "and from what I can see, this isn't the first time you've been here."

"Yes, she's correct. However, if you insist on revealing us, we'll have no choice but to notify someone about your construction project over there, as well." Rachel joined in, unintimidated, though she still was puzzled over how he'd been able to creep up on them.

"Yeah, whatever!" Tristan replied, rolling his eyes, "Just get lost, you losers!" He spun around and swaggered back making some sorts of inaudible comments that judging by his friends' piercing laughters seemed to amuse them tremendously.

"Whoa, Rachel, you're on fire today!" Gio told her admiringly while following her through the undergrowth back to the trail.

Back on the path, they discussed the platform and its components, exchanging ideas on how to improve it and questioning its ultimate purpose. They were so engrossed in their conversation that they forgot to circle the area where the designated guard person should have been sitting. Fortunately, no one was standing post, so they simply continued on their way and crossed the empty parking lot unnoticed.

Halfway to Joe's house, they heard the siren of an ambulance growing increasingly louder. Worried, they hurried up and were almost sprinting by the time they saw the ambulance emerging from the private road and sharply veer to the left before speeding away down the road with all lights flashing.

"Alan!" they all gasped at the same time, racing even faster down the small road on the way to his house.

Chapter Ten

The ambulance sped through the neighborhood, honking the horn at every intersections, and entered the highway on the way to the hospital. Inside, the urgency was palpable as well. Everyone in the ambulance fulfilled a precise task, sparing no unnecessary energy or attention. The small figure of Mr. Greenpound hardly filled the gurney, and seemed too fragile to sustain such intense monitoring. One of the two paramedics attending to Mr. Greenpound vital signs kept his eyes riveted to the cardiac monitor that was hooked to the sick man. It showed 2 wavy lines ending with numbers and beeped steadily with every heart beat. The other paramedic had inserted an IV line into the old man's skinny forearm that connected to a bag hanging on a pole by the stretcher.

Throughout the whole ride, Alan held the old man's tiny cold hand in his cupped hand as if it were a delicate baby bird that had fallen out of a nest. Watching Mr. Greenpound's pale face, he was still amazed that this frail man could have been feared by so many people.

"ETA 2 minutes." the speaker crackled overhead.

"What does that mean?" Alan asked the man who was unhooking the IV bag.

"It means that the Estimated Time of Arrival at the hospital is 2 minutes." the paramedic answered without looking at Alan, "Be ready and stay out of the way!"

Behind them, the cardiac monitor suddenly started to beep faster. The EMT in charge of the device twisted a couple knobs on the upper left side of the machine, while the other man hastily hooked the IV bag back on the pole.

"He's flat-lining." the paramedic announced, his eyes still fixed on the monitor where the 2 lines were now flat across the screen with "00" at each end. The beeping noise had been replaced by a continuous one.

"Jim, grab the breathing bag." the man said calmly, but with intensity in his voice, as he kept pressing on Mr. Greenpound's chest with both hands.

Immediately after the ambulance came to a screeching halt, the rear doors flung wide open and three doctors wearing yellow coverups quickly stepped forward to assist with unloading the stretcher and wheel it to the emergency room. The paramedic still continued performing CPR as the gurney was wheeled to the ER entrance.

"He flat-lined on the way here." the man holding the IV bag informed the emergency doctor that came rushing toward him.

"How long ago?" the doctor asked, taking the bag from the paramedic and placing it on the stretcher.

"60 to 90 seconds ago."

In no time, the stretcher had vanished behind the self closing doors of the emergency entrance.

Stunned, Alan jumped out of the ambulance and hurried after the small party of emergency personnel. "What just happened?" he pondered, running to catch up.

They wheeled Mr. Greenpound quickly along well lit hallways, shoe soles furiously squeaking on the polished floor. They buzzed over the sick man, one pumping the air bag, another pounding on the bony chest, all the while jogging to the ER and ignoring Alan's desperate attempts to get answers. At the turn of a hall, they reached a sliding metallic door which opened automatically at the push of a plate on the wall.

At the door, a nurse in red scrubs blocked Alan from going any further with one arm extended straight out in front of her, "You can't come in here, kid."

"But, how is he doing? Is he going to be ok? Can you at least tell me that?" Alan begged her, frustrated that no one seemed to mind him.

"Don't know yet. Go sit in the waiting room. We'll let you know as soon as possible."

And before Alan could even say another word, she was gone. The door slid back shut on the commotion of the sterilized operating room relegating Alan to a silent onlooker on the other side.

Slowly, Alan detached his eyes from the little window on the door, and with a heavy heart walked back toward the main hall, where he followed the signs to the waiting room.

It hadn't occurred to him, until now, that Mr. Greenpound could die. "No way!" he thought, in disbelief, how could a day like today with its ups and downs - he had suffered a panic attack but recovered from it by himself for the first time after all - end with a tragedy? "No way!" he told himself.

Following the signs, he passed the nurses' station and ended up in a big rectangular hall situated a few steps away from the main hospital entrance. "Must be the waiting room" he thought looking for an empty seat. The seats were arranged in rows of 5, like in airport gates, all facing a big flat screen TV which was broadcasting the latest news and information in a continuous loop. Alan spotted an empty row and plopped himself down, absently staring at the TV screen.

"Alan?"

Alan jumped up and jerked his head around and to his astonishment saw Mrs. Jones sitting two rows behind him. She looked confused when she asked, "What are you doing here?... Is everything all right, Dear?"

"Oh, hi, Mrs. Jones! I didn't see you when I walked in..." Alan stammered, baffled, his mind racing to put 2 and 2 together, "Yes everything's fine...um...no, actually, not really..."

"What's the matter? Is someone hurt?" she asked with a concerned look on her face, tilting her head while flipping her long black hair to one side.

"Yes. Mr. Greenpound is. He had a heart attack back in the woods and they rushed him here."

"I'm sorry, Dear, but I don't understand. Why are YOU here?"

Alan blinked his eyes, wondering why she wasn't grasping what he was telling her, when out of a side door Tic-Tac-Toe Bob walked in holding a Coke, "Hey, Alan, what's up?"

Alan was beyond confused and kept glancing from Mrs. Jones to Tic-Tac-Toe Bob, when at last, light came to him, "How's Albert? I thought that he had just fainted and not been hurt by the gun shot?"

"Yes, Dear, you're right. They want to keep him here a little longer for observation. Just to make sure he doesn't have a concussion, only a big bump on the back of his head. I guess, he banged his head pretty hard when he fell on the ground."

"Yeah, you should see the size of the bump. It's as big as a golf ball!" Tic-Tac-Toe Bob pitched in, holding out his hand with his thumb and index finger joined in a big circle to emphasize the dimension.

"Robert! Be quiet!" Mrs. Jones spatted at her son, still furious at him from his morning senseless stunt.

"Okay then...um..." Alan started to say, his eyes darting around the room, searching for a way out of such an uncomfortable situation.

"But, Dear, you still have not told us why you're here." Mrs. Jones said pleasantly after she'd switched her attention back to Alan and leaned back in her chair, letting her hands unconsciously reach for her bulging belly.

"Can't believe she's pregnant again!" Alan thought to himself before he answered, "I was walking on Mr. Greenpound's road when...um...I saw him laying in the ditch. Since I didn't have my phone, I had to run back home to call 9-1-1. Then I rushed back to Mr. Greenpound's side. The ambulance got to him at the same time I did, and then they brought him here. I rode in the back with him, because I didn't want to leave him by himself, you know. So, that's why I'm here." He looked over to the nurse's station, and added to himself, "Hope he's fine, in there."

"Yeah, right. And you just happened to be walking on his private road, huh?" Tic-Tac-Toe Bob sneered, "And...oh!...where were you going exactly?"

"Robert! For the last time, be quiet! Alan saved someone's life today, and that's quite an achievement! Unlike your careless actions this morning!" Mrs. Jones uttered irritated, her eyes glaring at her son with anger. She was still flushed when she spoke to Alan: "I'm sure he'll get the best care here, Dear. That's all we can hope for, right now."

Two nurses in green scrubs walked in their direction as they were the last people still sitting in the waiting room.

"Are you Alan?" one nurse asked Alan who had stood up quickly as she was approaching, "Mr. Greenpound is in the recovery room now. That's all we are authorized to say, but thanks to your actions today, he should be just fine."

Alan blew a big sigh of relief and asked if he could go see him.

Meanwhile, the other nurse informed Mrs. Jones that her son was now ready to go home and that she would have the discharge papers ready for her to sign momentarily.

"Alan, Dear. Would like a ride home? I need to go to your house anyway to get my little ones. Your mom was very kind to take care of them while I was here, bless her heart."

"Sure, Mrs. Jones. That'd be great, thank you! The nurse just now told me that Mr. Greenpound won't be able to see visitors until tomorrow afternoon, at the soonest, so I'll just come back then. I'm so happy he'll be ok!"

"Don't think you're fooling me with your pathetic story!" Tic-Tac-Toe Bob told Alan under his breath after his mother had left to go sign the release papers and help her son get dressed to leave, "I'll find out what you were up to, you can mark my words!"

"What's wrong with you, man? Why are you such a moron? Mind your own business, for crying out loud!" Alan replied staring at him hard then turned around and walked away smiling to Mrs. Jones and Albert who were waiting for them by the sliding doors.

Chapter Eleven

Yavapai Lane was a two-way road cutting through a dense wooded area on the south side of the lake. It connected the modest town of Birchwood to the parking lot next to the hiking trailhead where the trail gently curved around the east side of the lake. On each side of the road, small private driveways branched off through a dense wall of tall trees towering above abundant undergrowth.

Joe and his friends had passed the graveled driveway that lead to his house without slowing down or even glancing at it while rushing to Alan's house. As they were coming up to Alan's paved driveway, Sam kept charging forward, her long bangs flying behind her head like a flag, as a dreadful feeling grew in the pit of her stomach with each step.

The thought of Alan being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance brought Sam back to the painful memory of a sunny Spring afternoon, a few years ago.

On that day, Sam's mother had taken advantage of the warm weather to go work outside in her flower garden. Sam had turned down her mother's offer to join her outside and stayed inside instead to finish her pretty butterfly drawing.

Sam, who was a first-grader then, lived with her parents and her older brother, on the north side of the lake. Her father, Tim Lambert, was a renowned international correspondent who traveled the world to report from different war zones from which he'd bring back breathtaking pictures. He had a huge collection of pictures from his trips, but his favorite subject to photograph was his family. Every wall in their house was mostly covered with blown up family pictures except for a few still pictures and photos of different landscapes from around the world that were scattered here and there. In Sam's room, though, the photographs on the walls were a series of snapshots of her taken within the past 6 years. Above her desk, the wall was covered by a huge collage made of small shots of her green eyes staring back at her. The overall effect was a startling work of art.

That afternoon, Sam was alone in the house because her father was away on a trip and her brother was at a Lacrosse game with his high school team. She was sitting at her desk in her bedroom leaning over her drawing, her long dirty blonde hair hanging on each side of her serious face. Her tongue was stroking her upper lip as she focused all of her attention on the butterfly's delicate wings. Satisfied with the result, she put her crayon down and looked out her window at her mother who was in the backyard digging a hole to plant some flowers. She walked to the kitchen to get something to drink. She grabbed an unopened bottle of soda out of the fridge and carefully placed it on the kitchen counter - she knew her mother would be upset if she messed up the kitchen or was drinking soda without first asking for permission. With a quick glance over her shoulder, she made sure that her mother wasn't coming back inside, and tried to unscrew the cap. But, it was on too tight! So she tried again, and this time the cap popped off, like the cork of a champagne bottle. The carbonated soda spilled all over the counter and down onto the floor. Sam spun around to grab the roll of paper towels on the opposite side of the counter, but stopped her movement midway because she couldn't see clearly out of one eye, it was all blurry. Worried, she ran outside to her mother without cleaning up the mess in the kitchen. Sam will never forget the frightened look on her mother's face when she looked up at her!

Mrs. Lambert dropped the tool she was holding and raised both hands to her mouth, holding back a shocked cry. The bottle cap had slit Sam's left eyeball when it had popped off the bottle, and the pupil had bled out like a cracked egg yolk into the green iris.

Mrs. Lambert got up and grabbed her daughter's little hand and held it tight while they ran toward the house. Once inside, she finally took off her gardening gloves and dropped them one by one while racing through the house, still holding her little girl's hand, to get to her car parked in the driveway. But the driveway was empty. Puzzled but with no time to spare, she went back inside and called 911. Within minutes an ambulance had been dispatched to the house and in no time Sam was on her way to the hospital.

During the ride to the ER, Sam felt claustrophobic with the paramedics hovering over her and her fast-growing fear made her feel nauseous. She was unable to move her head with the neck braces around her neck and her arms were held down to prevent her from reaching up to touch her eye. She was so confused and scared that all she wanted was to be held by her mother and cry on her soft shoulder.

No sooner the ambulance had stopped at the emergency entrance that Sam was swooped away to a room where doctors and nurses fussed franticly around her. The fear never eased its grip, not even when the doctors told Sam's mother that although her daughter's eye would never regain full vision, it would be somewhat functioning when healed albeit odd looking. At last, Sam was able to hug her mother and cry all the tears she'd bravely held back before a taxi cab took them back home.

They were about to get inside the house when they heard the familiar sound of Mrs. Lambert's red Volvo station wagon driving up their small driveway. Sam's brother, Mark, was sitting in the front seat that was so far leaned back that he had to bend his head forward to see. All the windows were down and the music was blasting. He was leaning over the center console casually holding his cell phone while palming the steering wheel to turn onto the circular driveway in front of the house.

When Matt saw his mother staring back at him with a bewildered expression on her face and his little sister wearing an immense eye patch over her left eye, he jerked up in his seat and reached for the handle to bring it upright which slammed him in the back and hurled him over nose first on the steering wheel. Mark stopped the car a few feet short from where his mother and sister were standing petrified and speechless, and extracted himself out of the Volvo holding his bloody nose. He knew he was busted and there wasn't any justification possible to his action, so he walked past them without a word only pausing to hand the car keys over to his mother.

Mark didn't have a permit or license to drive and had been borrowing his mother's car without her knowledge for weeks. It then finally occurred to Mrs. Lambert why her car had had such poor gas mileage, lately!

For Sam, that sunny Spring afternoon was the day she came into looking odd with mismatched eyes, one green and one black. It was also the day she decided to get a new hair style: short in the back with long bangs dropping down to cover her black injured eye.

Joe was the first one to fly around the corner of the Butler's driveway. When they reached the front steps of Alan's house, they knocked on the front door and caught their breaths while waiting for someone to open the door. They could hear voices from behind the closed door. Someone inside screamed so loudly when Mrs. Butler opened the door that Joe had to yell, "Hi, Mrs. Butler. Is Alan home?"

"Hi guys!" Mrs. Butler yelled back, "Come on in. And close the door behind you, will you? I need to go put an end to all this racket!"

"Dude, what's going on in here?" Sam asked walking toward the noise.

"Dunno, but it doesn't sound good! Man, my ears are still ringing from that scream!" Gio replied, holding his hands up to his ears.

They stepped inside the family room that seemed to have been decorated back in the 60's and determined to withhold any trendy upgrades. Two light blue Queen Ann armchairs were disposed at an angle by the fireplace to create a separate cozy space from the rest of the room, which consisted of 2 lime green covered couches facing each other and separated by a glass top coffee table. The bay window overlooking the lake was heavily draped with curtains that matched the couches and partially masked the view.

"Hi, Rachel. Do you want to do a puzzle with me?" asked a young girl with long stringy brown hair sitting on the floor sorting through a pile of puzzle pieces.

"No, not right now. Thank you, though." Rachel replied moving toward the kitchen where she could hear Alan's mother talking to someone. The little girl was surprised as Rachel had always played with her in the past whenever she had asked.

Rachel found Mrs. Butler carrying a small dark haired boy straddled on her hip and holding the hand of a small girl with a puffy face and eyes red from crying.

"Is Alan here?" Rachel asked her anxiously, as she hadn't seen or heard her friend yet in the house and was getting extremely worried.

"He came home a while ago to make a phone call, I think, and then left right away again. I assumed he was with you guys."

"Where did he go? Did he say?" Joe pressed her. He was now also standing in the kitchen with Gio and Sam on each side.

"No, he only said that he needed to go back to Mr. Greenpound's." Mrs. Butler said shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders.

"Greenpound's? What?" Sam yelped, peering at her friends before drilling Mrs. Butler again, "Where did he go? What happened? Why would he need to go back there?"

They exchanged puzzled looks as none of them could figure out this equation. Mr. Greenpound and Alan just didn't go together. Period.

Chapter Twelve

The Butlers' house was full of kids of all ages but oddly neither one of the boys who lived there was home. The house swarmed with noise, voices, screams and laughs which Mrs. Butler had desperately tried to tame all day but had finally surrendered and let it take its course. She had offered to watch five of Mrs. Jones' children while she and her older son, Robert, went to the hospital to spend the day by one of her twin boy's bedside. Now, Mrs. Butler was worried because the friends of her youngest son, Alan, had showed up at her doorsteps looking for him and asking about his whereabouts.

"Mrs. Butler, you don't know what he meant by saying that he had to get back to Mr. Greenpound's?" Joe asked her, trying to keep his calm. He felt guilty for leaving Alan behind when they'd been chased by Mr. Greenpound through the woods.

"No, I don't understand it, either." she said, putting down the little boy who crawled quickly out of the kitchen on his way undoubtedly to torment the old Saint Bernard, Charlie, during his nap.

"Did he come back here after the thunderstorm or when it was still raining, do you remember?" Rachel asked.

"Well, lets see...um... oh, yes. It had to be after because I got the kids back inside when the storm broke and we made chocolate chips cookies. Alan came back just as I was about to take them out of the oven and I offered to pour him a glass of milk..."

"I thought I'd smell cookies when we walked in!" Gio exclaimed, looking around the kitchen for the treats.

"We need to formulate a plan?" Rachel stated to her friends, glaring furiously at Gio. How could Gio be thinking about food at a time when Alan's whereabouts were still in question was beyond Rachel's comprehension.

"Let's go to Greenpound's." Joe said, staring hard at his friends to warn them to keep quiet and then quickly glancing over Mrs. Butler, he added "I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation to all of this."

"Right!" Sam concurred eagerly, her green eye darting back and forth.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Butler. I'm sure we'll find him. Heck, he may be just hanging out at the beach, you know?" Joe told her reassuringly, "We'll call you when we find him."

The noise level seemed to have reached a new high when the phone rang, so they quickly hurried outside.

"Whoa, it's crazy in there!" Gio said pointing his thumb over his shoulder, "My ears are not ringing anymore, I tell ya, I just can't hear anything at all!"

"No joke! Do you think it's that crazy at the Jones all the time? No wonder that Tic-Tac-Toe Bob is messed up in the head, who wouldn't be?" Sam pitched in.

"Yeah, I know, it's crazy." Joe agreed, "Okay, so we know that Alan came back after the storm, which means that he didn't get caught by Greenpound."

"And found his way back out of the woods." Rachel added.

"But who did he call?" Sam asked, reaching for her cell phone, "I don't have any missed calls."

"Not me." Joe said turning his phone back on.

"Not me, either." Gio said after checking his cell.

"I had my phone on vibe the whole time and it didn't go off" added Rachel.

"Well, then...who did he call? and most importantly, where did he go after that?" Joe pondered raising his eyebrows.

"Really, why would he go to Greenpound's? Makes no sense!" Sam said, scratching the back of her head.

The front door suddenly flung open, and Mrs. Butler stood there holding the phone to her ear. "Oh, good, you're still here. It's Mrs. Jones on the phone and she tells me that Alan was at the hospital and that he is fine. They're on their way back here now."

"Oh, really! That's awesome!" Joe exclaimed with a big smile lighing up his face.

The noise faded instantly when she went back inside and shut the door.

"Now, I'm completely lost." Rachel said confused, then added with a timid smile, "But I'm relieved that he's okay."

"Yeah, me too." Sam said, "Though I can't fathom why he was at the hospital."

"Well, let's just wait until he gets here and ask him." Gio suggested, "Hope it won't be long, cause I could use a cookie, right about now. I could almost taste those suckers in there, they smelled so good!"

"That's nice, Gio! You're a real class act, I swear." Sam sneered, sitting down on the front steps.

"Why? What did I say that was so wrong? The cookies smelled good, what can I say...and I know that Alan's Mom saved him a few and he might give me one, that's all, Jeez!" Gio told Sam, sitting at the other end of the step.

"Chill out, you two. Let's just wait here for Alan and take it easy, okay?" Joe said, walking past them and sitting down two steps above.

Rachel stayed standing at the bottom of the front steps facing the driveway with her eyes fixed on the small paved road. She kept wondering about the reason that had led Alan to the hospital, but couldn't come up with any plausible explanation.

"The platform those guys built back at the Tree was really cool, didn't you think?" Joe asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence, "I wonder what they plan to add to it, though, it didn't look like it was finished. Did you get that feeling too?"

"Nope." Sam replied blandly, intently inspecting her long bangs for split ends.

The silence returned to the front steps where minutes started to feel like hours. Again, Joe broke the silence. "Why do you think they brought sheets of plywood back there? I'm guessing they might use them to build walls."

"Makes sense." Gio answered, looking straight ahead, "It'd be the perfect material to build a solid treehouse, that's for sure. I read once about building your own treehouse on line and it listed a whole bunch of materials to use and all the different steps to follow. There was even a kit you could buy 'to make your dream come true'. It was really involved, but it looked cool. I even asked my Dad if he'd help me build one in our backyard, but he's no handyman, so it never happened..."

"Man, that's too bad. It would have been so cool!" Joe said, envisioning the inside of the imaginary treehouse.

"I wonder what they'll use for the roof, though." Gio said, snapping out of his dreamed treehouse thoughts, "I didn't see any material for it back there."

"They'll probably use the same plywood for the roof." Sam pitched in, still holding her bangs in front of her face, "They just need to make a frame like an umbrella and nail the plywood to it. Well, that's what I would do, anyway."

"Whoa, that's really clever. I would never have thought of that. But you're right, Sam, it would work like a charm." Gio told her, impressed, all traces of his previous sulky expression erased from his face.

"They should build a dome-like frame with the stainless steel cable they have. Then they'd just have to cover it with a tarp. That way, it would be a lot lighter and easier to build." Rachel added matter-of-fact, her eyes still riveted on the driveway.

They all stared at the back of Rachel's head because she hadn't moved one inch since Mrs. Butler had gone back inside, awestruck by such a brilliant idea. Even Sam had let go of her bangs to look up at her friend who kept going on, "The only challenge will be to attach the cables to create the curvature of the dome. As for the tarp, it should be cut into triangle shaped sections and sewn together so that the overall tarp would be round and therefore fit perfectly on top of the dome frame. Once that'd be done, it'd be easy to raise it and slide it above the dome."

"Damn, Rachel, that's genius! Really!" Joe told her, admiringly.

"Yeah, I still can't figure out why Rachel hangs out with you, Gio. Such a smart girl with such an average guy...Beats me!" Sam said glancing over to Gio with a crooked little smile on her face.

"Right back at you, Sam!" Gio joked back, then serious again, "I bet the Old Fart could build your dome-shaped frame in no time, Rachel. Did you see what he did with his 4-wheel Moped? The guy is gifted when it comes to building things. Too bad he's such a nut case!"

Rachel suddenly swung around with an odd expression on her face. She seemed mesmerized by thoughts crossing her mind as she stared at her friends with wide open eyes then a rare small smile started to form on her face.

"Zip lines!" she said nodding her head up and down with now a full blown smile.

"Huh...Zip lines?..." Gio asked raising his black eyebrows.

"Yes, they should build a zip line park with the stainless steel cables." Rachel told her friends, "When I was in Maui for Spring Break, my uncle took my cousins and me to a zipline park on the slope of Haleakala Volcano. We were each strapped into harnesses attached to carabiners that zipped on stainless steel lines high up in the trees and literally flew down to the next crossing. There were also incredibly high hanging swinging bridges to cross and different types of waggling hanging structures to step through. It was physically demanding, but very enjoyable!"

"Sounds like it!" Sam said, interested, "But where could you build such a park around here?"

"Back there by the Tree, I guess. I can't think of any other areas round here with tall trees. But it wouldn't be big enough to build something like what Rachel is describing." Joe said, "Unless it was built on Greenpound's property, and that will never happen with that old kook around."

"What a bummer! That would have been sick!" Sam replied feeling down suddenly.

"That's right!" Joe said bitterly, "Imagine a zipline park built in the tall trees on the Old Fart's property with all lines ending on the platform. After removing the harness, you could just use the rope swing to jump in the lake or slide down a fireman pole to the ground. Whoa, talk about awesome. Our own park right here in Birchwood!"

Chapter Thirteen

The black Sprinter van sped down the highway, back the way it had come. The interior had been customized with additional seating and a raised roof allowing people to stand fully upright. Mrs. Jones was a careful driver; she never exceeded the speed limit and constantly checked her side and rear view mirrors. Robert was sitting next to her in the passenger seat with his head pressed against the window, silently watching the landscape passing by. Behind him, his brother was telling Alan about his day at the hospital in chronological details. Alan had lost interest early in Albert's story and had drifted back to his own thoughts. It had been an interesting day, he thought, filled with ups and downs. He was wondering whether his friends would believe any of it when he'd recount to them everything that had happened thus far.

Alan snapped out of his thoughts when he heard a loud scratch noise above his head that sounded as if the roof had been ripped off the van. Looking out the front windshield, he realized that they had turned onto his own driveway. It was easily recognizable because the tree branches hung low and desperately needed to be pruned.

"We're here." Mrs. Jones announced as she pulled the van around the roundabout in front of the house. She stopped and turned off the van's engine by the front steps, "Robert, stay in the car with Albert. I'll just be a minute."

Sam, Joe and Gio stood up when the van came to a stop behind Rachel. Alan slid the side door and step down just as Rachel was spinning around to face him. Without a moment of hesitation, she threw her arms around him and pulled him tight against her.

"Alan, I'm so happy you're okay." she whispered in his ear, "Oh my god, I was so worried!"

Alan stood there petrified with amazement. Then, slowly, he raised his arms to hold her, and let one of his hand run down her back when she locked her arms around his neck.

"I'm fine, Rachel. Really!" he said, gently pulling away from her to stare into her eyes, "Really!"

Was it the way she looked back at him or the high of the moment that made him want to kiss her? Alan would never know. When he leaned forward to kiss her, she yanked her head back as if she'd been zapped with electricity. Alan could see all the feelings and emotions pouring out of her eyes. Then, she reached for his hands and timidly leaned over and kissed him on the mouth.

"Whoa...ummmm...Hello?" Gio said, uncomfortable and quite baffled by the scene.

Alan could feel Rachel's smile before he reluctantly drew himself away. Without letting go of her hand, he looked up at his friends, "What's up?"

"What's up? Are you kidding us?" Sam asked him in disbelief, "That's all you have to say?"

"Hey, Alan. Are you okay, Dude? Sam is a little on edge, as she was,.. well we all were, really worried about you, you know?" Joe explained, "I guess you've already figured out how Rachel felt..."

"Yeah, I'm fine." Alan answered a big smile curling his lips, "Let's go inside, I gotta go tell my Mom I'm here."

"I'm sure she already knows that. You may have missed it, lost as you were in your greeting moment, if you catch my drift." Gio said, pointing his chin to the open front door "But, Mrs. Jones has been in there for a while, now."

"Oh!" Alan said surprised, and squeezing Rachel's hand while looking a her with a broad smile, he added "I kinda lost track of time, huh?"

"Yeah, you can say that!" Sam retorted. As she was about to turn around to head inside, she saw Robert leaning out of the lowered window with a mocking smile on his face.

"Hey, Alan. Looks like you finally got some lip on lip action there." Tic-Tac-Toe Bob said loudly, "Was it your first time kissing a girl? Boy, I thought for a minute that you were going to butt-head her on your first try! Really. Maybe you need to practice on a watermelon a little more. Oh my God, you're such a buffoon!"

Alan turned bright red in the face with mixed feelings of shame and anger, but Rachel held on to his hand tightly, not letting him fly off the handle at such ridiculous comments.

"Look who's talking!" Gio sneered back, "Indiana Jones, here, drawing a gun and sending his brother to the hospital. Talk about a buffoon!"

"No joke! Good thing there wasn't a lasso around or he could have shaved his other brother's head during the twirling demonstration!" Sam joined in, spinning her wrist around over her head.

"Yep. That's hilarious!" Tic-Tac-Toe Bob replied with a look of disgust on his face. He quickly withdrew his head back inside and rolled up the window as everyone was laughing at him.

They stepped inside the foyer just as Mrs. Jones and her children were taking leave of Alan's mother, "...thank you so much for taking care of my little monsters. I really appreciate it. I hope they weren't too much trouble."

"Sure, no problem. Anytime!" Mrs. Butler said graciously, although she was extremely relieved that her babysitting duty for those little monsters was over. She closed the door after the last one of them had scurried out of her house, turned around and leaned back against the door. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, counted to ten, then straightened herself back up. She opened her eyes and saw Alan and his friends standing in the entryway and staring back at her with a puzzled look on their faces.

"Oh, I didn't see you guys come inside. Honey, I'm so glad you're fine." she told her son while hugging him, "Tell me what happened today, okay? But first, I'm going to make myself a cup of tea, then I'll be all ears."

She walked off to the kitchen and after putting the kettle on the stove, she called out, "Honey, you and your friends should go sit outside at the patio table. I have some fresh chocolate chip cookies for you. What would you like to drink? Milk?"

"Coke will be fine, Mom. Thanks!"

"Alan, does your mom need any help?" Rachel asked him, she felt bad that Mrs. Butler should serve them after the day she'd just had.

"I'll go help her." Gio offered, always ready to lend a hand especially whenever food was involved.

"I'll go with you, too." Sam said, already heading toward the kitchen.

"Ummm... I'll go too." Joe quickly added, as he was not going to be the third wheel with Alan and Rachel.

"Okay, then. We'll be outside." Alan said, reaching for Rachel's hand and heading toward the French doors that open up to the backyard.

When the tea was ready, Mrs. Butler and her helpers went outside to join Rachel and Alan who quickly let go of her hand as if it were on fire. They sat around a square table that Mr. Butler had made on his spare time after they'd moved into the house. It was very cleverly built because the sitting part, which consisted of 4 small benches, was attached to each side of the table and big enough to comfortably sit 8 people around it.

"Alright, Honey. Please tell us what happened today. I haven't had time to figure it out because I've been so busy all day entertaining kids. Even your dad had to leave with all the noise those kids made. He couldn't concentrate, he said. And, you know your dad, it would take a bulldozer driving through the house to disturb him."

Alan recounted what had happened to him and kept his audience interested in every word he said. When he finished his story, the Coke cans were empty and some cookie crumbs were all that was left on the plate.

"So Mr. Greenpound's going to make it, then? I'm glad." Gio said, relieved that everything had worked out fairly well.

"Yeah, me too. I'm going back to the hospital tomorrow to check on him. He looked so frail, you know. I just want him to get better and maybe understand him a little more." Alan concluded.

Everyone fell silent, pondering on Alan's last statement.

"Oh, I hear your dad in the house. I bet he's looking for the cookies!" Mrs. Butler said getting up from the table. "Glad everything is okay with all of you. Would you like something else?" she asked them on her way back to the house.

"No, Mrs. Butler. Thank you very much. We'll clean up before we leave, though." Rachel told her.

"Tell me what happened to you guys. Did you come back here right away?" Alan asked his friends after his mother had closed the backdoor behind her.

"Well, not exactly..." Joe started. He went on to tell Alan about the old barn they'd found while sprinting through the wood and their discovery of the amazing Buggy, "The 4-wheel Mopped" as Gio called it, that Mr. Greenpound had built and kept in the barn. Rachel told Alan about the remarkable collection of old books they'd also discovered tucked away in the back of the barn in the middle of an extensive supply of all sorts of tools and parts. Gio related the discovery of the platform by the tree without mentioning his sister's appalling flirtatious behavior with Alan's brother, Tristan, but focusing rather on details about its construction. Sam finished by explaining how they'd become really worried about him when they'd seen the ambulance driving away with all lights on and siren blaring, and their mad race to his house only to find out that he'd ended up at the hospital.

"And then, you came back home with Tic-Tac-Toe Bob!" Sam concluded, "We couldn't make head or tail of it, let me tell you!"

"Whoa. It's just amazing how it all came together at the end, don't you think?" Gio asked his friends, looking at each one of his friends with an eager expression on his face.

"That's right, Gio. It's quite beautiful. Snif..." Sam said sarcastically, then she smiled at him so sweetly that he couldn't resist smiling back and forgive her for all of her teasing.

"We had time to kill when we waited for you to come back, Alan," Joe went on, "and both Sam and Rachel came up with brilliant ideas on how to improve the platform back in the woods. Tell him, Rachel, about your zipline idea. It's so cool."

"I was telling them about my uncle taking my cousins and me to a Zipline park in Hawaii this past spring. It made me think of it when I saw the stainless steel cables they had brought back there. I thought how it'd be great to build such a park in the woods at the end of the lake with all the tall trees back there. The Zip line could end at the platform where one could either rope swing into the lake or slide down a fireman's pole to get off the course." Rachel explained evenly.

"But, it'd have to run through some of Greenpound's property, and we all know how wacky he is about people trespassing on his lot." Joe added, "It's really too bad. Imagine how fun it'd be!"

"That's a great idea, Rachel." Alan said, looking at her tenderly and hesitantly reaching for her hand resting on the table that she quickly withdrew under the table, "Maybe I can talk to him tomorrow when I go see him at the hospital."

They stared at him as if he were from another planet. It was the crazy Old Fart they were talking about, not the beloved Ethel!

"Alan, how are you going to get him to agree to something like this?" Sam asked him, leaning on her elbows and looking at him with a shocked expression on her face.

"Dunno. But there's got to be some angles I can use, I'm sure. Just need to find which one." Alan said, his mind already racing.

"What about bird watching?" Gio asked, thinking out loud.

"What about it?" Sam asked bewildered, then remembering the old Audubon book, "Oh, you're right, Gio. He must be a bird watcher! Makes sense now why he hates it so much when people come on his property. They make too much noise and it disturbs the birds!"

"Which modifies their habitat and causes them to relocate to another area." Rachel said finishing Sam's sentence, "Wow, Gio, how perceptive of you! I'm really impressed with your human behavior observation."

"Gio, you're a genius!" Alan told his gloating friend, "I think this could work. I'll make sure to emphasize how birds won't be disturbed anywhere else on his property since everyone will congregate only in the Zip Line designated area."

"And that the course will be closed for the cold season at which time he'll be able to use it for bird watching or feeding." Joe added, excited, "That's IT!"

They were completely invigorated by a surge of euphoria at the prospect of a zip line park at their doorstep.

"Who will design the park, though." Sam asked after the rush had passed, "It might be too dangerous to just do it ourselves. I sure don't feel confident to do something like that."

"Me neither." Rachel concurred.

"What about your dad, Alan?" Joe asked his friend, "He builds car crash simulators for a living, so I bet that designing a zip line course won't be tough for him."

"Yeah, I guess." Alan said, considering the proposal, "Doesn't hurt to ask, right?"

"It won't be my dad, I can tell you that!" Gio commented, "He didn't even want to build the treehouse that came in a kit!"

"I'll go ask him right now." Alan said swinging a leg over the bench to get up. "Be right back."

Chapter Fourteen

Alan walked back to the patio where his friends were sitting at the table and talking all at once. His father was following him, holding a cookie in his mouth while twisting the cap off a coke.

"Hey, guys!" he mumbled, holding the cookie with his teeth which abruptly broke off and fell by his feet, "Oh, bother!"

"Dad. No one other that Winnie the Pooh says 'Oh, bother', c'mon." Alan told him, a little embarrassed by his dad's awkwardness, then addressing his friends, "He says that it won't be a problem for him to draw the plans, but that we definitely need to get Mr. Greenpound's permission, first."

"I think that it's a great idea and you can all learn some practical physics applications like momentum and drag." Mr. Butler said, picking up the piece of cookie off the ground and brushing it off, "As soon as you get Mr. Greenpound's okay, I'll start to research the best options and come up with a preliminary drawing. You might also have to check with the town and the association."

"I'll just ask my mom. I'm sure she'll know or at least she'll know who to ask." Joe volunteered. "Wholly crap!" he shrieked, slapping his forehead with his hand, "I forgot all about Matt! I was supposed to get him at the swim shack a while ago. What time is it?" Swinging both legs over the bench while checking the time on his phone, he sprung to his feet and dashed for the back door, "I'll call you later."

"Bye, Mrs. Butler. Thanks for the cookies, they were excellent." Joe said when he rushed past her as she was about to walk out the backdoor.

He ran all the way to the swim shack without stopping, and got there drenched with sweat and barely able to talk because he was breathing so hard. "I need to start working out more often." he thought as he was opening the shack door.

Coach Al was sitting at a make-do desk going over a report and punching numbers on a calculator. He looked up when Joe stepped inside and smiled at him, "Hey, Joe. Still looking for your girlfriend?"

"No, I'm not, but I'm looking for Matt. Do you know where he is?" Joe asked him.

"He left with your mother a little while ago."

"My mother?" Joe stammered, all colors drained from his face as he feared his mother's wrath about his tardiness.

"Yes, your mother. She said that she was surprised not to see you guys at home when she drove up here. So, she came here and found Matt, I guess."

"Thanks, coach Al. See you tomorrow!" Joe said, quickly leaving the shack. He was definitely not in the mood for another one of his cracks.

He headed back the way he came, but not running this time. In fact, he walked without hurrying, trying to come up with a plausible explanation for his mother. He knew he was in deep trouble even though the day's events should have granted him some reprieve. But he also knew very well that his mother would have little to no tolerance for disregarding his responsibility. He had worked very hard to persuade her to let him stay home to take care of his younger brother this summer and had promised her he would be fully reliable. "You blew it!" he thought to himself, as he approached the beach on the south side of the lake.

"What's with the long face, Joe?" Maria asked him.

Joe looked up, startled by Maria's voice as he had not seen her walking up from the beach. She had her arm wrapped around Tristan's waist and was flashing him a devilish smile.

"Still snooping around, I see!" Tristan sneered at Joe, "Did the others send you scouting the area by yourself first, this time?"

"C'mon, Tristan. Leave him alone." Maria pleaded, squeezing his waist a little more and leaning her head affectionally on his shoulder. "See ya later, Joe. And, smile..." she told him, "you're so cute when you smile!"

"See ya!" Joe managed to say, trying to sound casual and briskly walked away with his head down to hide his blazing face. One day he hoped that he would be able to have an intelligent conversation with Maria without turning red as a tomato, but unfortunately today wasn't that day.

He heard them giggle as they headed in the opposite direction. "What does she see in him?" he wondered to himself, forgetting momentarily his dilemma, "Surely, she can do much better than that moron!"

By the time he reached the Jones' driveway, where the twin boys were playing freeze-tag with their sisters, Joe was still struggling to come up with a decent explanation for forgetting his commitment.

His heart started to race in his chest when he approached his own driveway. He kept vainly wiping off his sweaty palms on his shorts as he walked by his mother's cruiser that was parked in front of the house. His mind was only focusing on what awaited him inside and he felt like he carried the weight of the world's misery on his shoulder.

He opened the door hesitantly, then took a deep breath and walked inside bracing himself for a harsh scolding. He could hear Matt and his mother chatting happily in the family room without oddly any of the familiar TV background noise.

When Joe stepped into the room, his mother scooted down to the middle of the couch, and patting the seat next to her with a big smile on her face, said, "Joe, Sweetheart! Come over here. Sit down."

Giving them both a puzzled look, Joe did as he was told and sat down on the couch next to his mother.

"I have an announcement to make!" she said, rapidly clapping her fists together in excitement, "I'd planned to tell you two at the same time when I drove up here, but you weren't here. So I went to the shack thinking that you were probably still hanging out with your friends. But then, only Matt was there, and..."

"I know, Mom. I am so sorry about that!" Joe interrupted her, "I was distracted by..."

"Okay, sorry. I know, I digress." she carried on, putting her hand on Joe's lap, "I'm just sooo excited and happy, I just can't help myself. I had to tell Matt, I just couldn't wait anymore, you know?"

"Mom! What is it?" Joe pressed her, looking at them back and forth.

"Joe...I got ENGAGED!" she screamed, bending her left hand at the wrist to show her new ring.

"You WHAT?" Joe yelped, blinking his eyes madly.

"Rob proposed to me over lunch. It was so romantic..." she replied glowing with pleasure.

"Yeah. How romantic!" Joe snapped back, pushing his mother's hand away, "Did he have the ring slipped in your burger patty?"

"What's wrong with you, Joe?" Matt asked his brother, "Aren't you happy for Mom? I am. And I like Rob. He's fun!"

"Jeez! I don't know. Who proposes over lunch at a fast food joint?" Joe sneered, "I mean, really! He couldn't come up with something more...umm... elaborate, perhaps?"

"Joe, Sweetheart. It doesn't matter where or how he proposed, although it was incredibly romantic..." she told him softly, closing her eyes briefly as she relived the moment, "and it wasn't at a 'fast food joint' as you so nicely put it! Anyway, what matters is that he loves me and I love him." She was a little surprised and hurt by her son's lack of enthusiasm at her big news.

Joe leaned back on the couch and stared at the black TV screen giving in to the turmoil of his mind.

Little by little two thoughts emerged clearly. The first and most persistent one was that he loved his mother and only wanted her to be happy. She had suffered enough with the desertion of her husband which had forced her to move to a much smaller house and change her way of life completely. , who was a pilot, had been scheduled to return from a trip the previous day, but was now missing. His mother immediately called her husband's cell phone but it had been disconnected with no forwarding number. Confused, she called the airline dispatcher to inquire about the specifics of the delay, and was told that the airplane as well as the whole crew had landed safely and on time. As days went by with no word, uncertainty set in and hopes faded. Finally his father called, and without offering any explanations about his decision, he told them that he no longer wanted to be part of their lives. His mother, unable to comprehend such decision, spent days crying and blaming herself for destroying her sons' lives with which had forced her to move to a much smaller house and change her way of life completely. Although deeply affected at first, she had managed to quickly recover and rebuild their life to what they had now. It was remarkable and Joe loved her even more for it. So, if now she had found someone she loved and who loved her too, who was he to question that?

The second thought was that his brother deserved to have a happy family life. He had been very young when their father had left them, and therefore hadn't had a chance to experience the security of a normal family, or to enjoy father-son bonding activities such as playing catch or just watching sports on TV.

Reaching for his mother's left hand, he turned to her, "I'm sorry Mom. I don't know why I reacted like this. I guess it just took me by surprise. I didn't know that you guys were that serious or that you even wanted to get married again after how it ended with Dad."

"I know, Honey. I was surprised myself..." she said softly, reaching out for Matt's hand. "But, I am so happy! Can't you be just a little happy for me?"

Swallowing hard the rising sob of emotion in his throat, he said with a sweet smile, "Mom, I am so happy for you. Really, I mean it."

"Oh, boys..." she said, tears swelling in her beautiful grey eyes, "We'll have a great life together, you'll see! I love you both so much and nothing will ever change that!"

Matt was crying whole heatedly, now, and kept wiping his runny nose with his T-Shit sleeve.

Joe who was trying to avoid weeping at all cost, joked, "Might get tough for you, though, with a household full of men. You might want to get a female dog or something to offset the number of boys!"

"Yes, or just get you a little sister..." she said, smiling, "Relax, I'm only kidding!"

The two boys exchanged a quick baffled look as they had not thought about such an option. Joe leaned over and kissed his mother, "Oh, I forgot to mention that I like Rob, too!" then got up and walked out of the family room before, he hoped, she would remember that he had left his brother hanging at the swimming shack and ground him for it. He rushed to his room and texted Gio to call him, as this was too big a news to break over a text message!

"Hey. So you're still alive, huh?" Gio said when Joe answered his phone.

"Dude, you're not going to believe this..." Joe started, plopping himself on his bed.

"Whoa, so now, you're not going to be the man of the house anymore. Bummer, Dude!" Gio said when his friend had finished talking.

"Yeah, whatever." Joe said, dismissively, "Hey, what's up with Maria? I just saw her at the beach with Tristan. Didn't you say they were supposed to spend the night at the 'Tree'?"

"Yeah, but my dad came back early from Italy and almost hit the ceiling when she called to say she was going to be late tonight. Man, you should have heard him yell at her into the phone! I'm sure it punctured her eardrum!"

"Well, it's better that way. I can't stand that idiot and I don't trust him as far as I can spit, I tell ya." Joe said, pleased that she was back home and not with Tristan, "Gotta go, man. Talk to you later."

As Joe was plugging his phone into the charger on his desk after he had hung up with Gio, he was reminiscing about all that had happened throughout the day and hoped that tomorrow would bring a little less drama.

Epilogue

The rest of the summer flew rapidly away. Once Mr. Greenpound returned home from the hospital, a cascade of events took place in the small community of Birchwood.

First, Alan painstakingly won the old man's trust by visiting him daily at the hospital, and then by checking on him regularly without being intrusive. Eventually, he introduced him to his friends, but neither Sam nor Gio ever quite warmed up to him; they just couldn't get past his weirdness and his awkward appearance. However, Sam admired his amazing mechanical skills and tried on numerous occasions to persuade Mr. Greenpound to let her drive his buggy but to no avail. Rachel, on the other hand, enjoyed the old man's company tremendously, especially when they discussed the works of classic authors or topics covered in a particular volume of his extensive ancient books' collection.

By mid-summer, Joe broached the subject of the zip line project and all that it entailed with Mr. Greenpound. He refused categorically to let anyone step on his property and dismissed further discussion about it. It was Rachel who suggested that, in order to comply with his request, the zip line course would only be set at a predetermined height over his property with no exit possible other than in an emergency. He was reluctant to agree but finally gave his consent when Joe remarked that it would be a perfect setting to place bird feeders and watch them during the winter months when the course would be closed.

Mr. Butler quickly drew preliminary sketching for the course once he got the green light from Mr. Greenpound and Alan and his friends submitted it to the association for approval. The most difficult part of the project was to get insurance for the zip line course, but Joe's mother contacted some people she knew from work and the matter was settled rather quickly.

Finally, the day came when they broke ground and the whole community pulled together; young and old worked side by side to transform the 'Tree' area into a zip line park. They built 5 additional platforms from which lines ran high above Mr. Greenpound's property and back down to the 'Tree'. It took the rest of the summer and all the fall to finish it, but the result of all of their work was astonishing.

Although the view from any of the new platforms was breathtaking, it was nothing compared to the rush of flying high in the trees which reminded Joe of his diving days when he was standing on the 10 meter platform looking down into the pool pit. Rachel experienced a whole different kind of sensation from the familiar one of riding waves, and even screamed when zipping downward, although not too loud.

The excitement of the opening of the zip line park and its operation was short lived as the winter season settled in particularly early with abundant snowfall. Everyone in the Birchwood community reluctantly returned to their usual winter activities except Mr. Greenpound who discovered a new activity of providing food and shelter for birds using the zip line course as a protected area. He had appointed one the five platforms with a reclining camp chair and heater, and armed with binoculars, he would spend countless hours watching the bird ballet unfold around him.

When the lake at last thawed out, Joe and his friends feverishly headed back to the 'Tree'.


End file.
